Provident Hospital, shuttered since it fell into bankruptcy, got another chance Monday as federal Housing Secretary Jack Kemp offered to sell the South Side facility to the state for $1.
Whether the price is a bargain for taxpayers and how the facility will be reopened must now be resolved by Gov. James Thompson and the Cook County Board.
In a letter to Thompson, Kemp set an agenda for reopening the hospital for lower income residents by taking up Cook County Board President George Dunne`s suggestion to sell it for a dollar-except that he proposed selling it to the state instead of the county.
Kemp gave the state and the county 100 days from Monday to ”take the steps necessary” to reopen Provident.
Dunne said that once the state approves the transaction, he will take the proposal to the County Board and seek ”an emergency reopening of the budget.” In addition to an estimated $40 million to $50 million for repairs, Dunne said that it would take about $50 million a year to operate the hospital.
A takeover of Provident, 500 E. 51st St., probably would permit the County Board to scale back any plan to build a new County Hospital.
Though Dunne, a Democrat, was seemingly snubbed, he and other county officials, as well as Thompson, gave positive reviews to the Kemp proposal.
Mary Brunette, Kemp`s assistant at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said politics did not play a role in the proposal. She said the state was included to ensure that the two governments work together to reopen Provident. The state, for instance, must issue a certificate of need before a hospital can open, she said.
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In his letter, Kemp, a Republican, said that he felt compelled to
”dispose of this facility as expeditiously as possible” because maintaining the building costs HUD $85,000 a month. He said he also was aware that budget restraints had prevented the Cook County government from bidding on the hospital.
A spokesman for Thompson said he saw no way that the state would end up holding the hospital.
In a news release, Thompson said, ”When Provident Medical Center closed its doors in November 1987, South Side Chicago residents were deprived of vital health care services and forced to seek help at other county facilities already overburdened.
”Once the transfer to the county is achieved, Provident can resume its historical role as a vital component in the health care delivery system for South Side residents.”
Dunne said that he believed Kemp`s letter vindicated his stance that the county need not pay a large sum for the 300-bed hospital ”I`m anxious and grateful,” Dunne said.
But there was at least one interested party not entirely thrilled by the surprise Kemp proposal.
The New Provident Community Hospital Association, a group that has unsuccessfully tried to raise money to buy the hospital, has maintained that as the first black-owned and operated hospital in Chicago, Provident, which opened in 1891, should remain controlled by blacks.
Joseph Collins, a spokesman for the group, said that HUD, while addressing the health care needs of the community, was ignoring ”political-economic” and ”socio-cultural needs.”
”We think it`s a little stereotypical that people would think we can`t run our own hospital,” Collins said. ”We do not need to be reinforced in the pathologies of dependency.”
However, John Stroger, a black County Board commissioner, said he was
”elated because the people in the community need the services.” He said he would like to see community representatives serve on an advisory panel concerned with running the hospital.
Stroger said that he did not assign any political significance to Kemp`s decision to convey the hospital to the state instead of the county. ”Kemp probably conveyed the building to the state because he was following the chain of command in government, so to speak,” Stroger said.
Commissioner Mary McDonald, chairwoman of the board`s County Hospital Subcommittee, said she thought Thompson could use the Kemp proposal as ”a lever to get Cook County to take over the University of Illinois Hospital, because the state wants to get rid of the yearly losses of $45 million.”
She predicted that the sale of the U. of I. Hospital will be the subject of recommendations from the Chicago and Cook County Health Care Summit. ”The U. of I. Hospital is the state`s big white elephant, and Kemp in the end will do what he can for Thompson,” she said.
McDonald strongly favors acquiring Provident. ”We will be able to put a trauma center there as well as an outpatient clinic and a general care facility,” she said. ”We will now only need a 300- to 400-bed new County Hospital for critical care such as the burn unit.”
Kemp said Gertrude Jordan, HUD`s regional administrator in Chicago, would work with state and county governments to get a ”plan of operation”
together.
Among the crucial steps, Kemp mentioned in the letter, are a ”financial feasibility study and commitments of financial support, as well as provisions for a board of transition to oversee the transfer of Provident from a HUD-owned property to a primary health-care facility.”
Thompson`s spokesman said the 100-day deadline may be difficult but that the terms of the sale otherwise were reasonable.
HUD acquired the property in March 1989, after the owners of Provident Hospital defaulted on its federally-insured mortgage. Brunette said that while the federal government was not receiving any money for the property, that loss was ”balanced by the public interest and the social good accomplished by having Provident Hospital” and the ”savings of having an existing hospital and not building a new County Hospital.”