Community Corner

Mercy Pleas for Crystal Lake Hospital

Mercy Health System's hearing on a 128-bed hospital draws supporters, opponents.

Fred Wickham remembers the 1981 immediate care center that opened in town and was supposed to expand into a full-fledged hospital.

Those plans never materialized, nor did the many efforts of officials to bring a hospital to Crystal Lake, said Wickham, a former city council member.

Friday, Wickham urged the Illinois Health Facilities Services and Review Board to grant Mercy Health System’s Certificate of Need application to build Crystal Lake’s first hospital on Route 31 and Three Oaks Road.

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“This is the best and last chance for Crystal Lake to have a hospital,” Wickham testified.

The review board hosted a public hearing Friday at Crystal Lake’s village hall that drew Mercy representatives, opposing hospital CEOs as well as average citizens to give their opinion on Mercy’s planned 128-bed hospital. Centegra Health System also is asking for a CON to build a hospital in Huntley.

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Unlike Centegra Health System’s hearing last month, the Mercy hearing was more impassioned and a bit more antagonistic with a Centegra representative questioning the character of Mercy’s top officials.

A controversial CON

Dan Lawler, an attorney for Centegra, said the board is “required by law to give ‘particular regard to the…. background and character of the applicant,’” then brought up Mercy’s 2004 CON application and the controversy surrounding the proceedings.

Mercy filed a CON for a hospital in Crystal Lake and was granted the board’s permission. However, the CON was later revoked and three people connected to the application—including Mercy’s contractor and the board’s vice-chairman, Stuart Levine—were indicted. 

“The integrity of the CON process was destroyed by actions surround the Mercy Crystal Lake application in 2004,” Lawler said. “There is now a new state board, but the people on Mercy’s side are the same. Can the leopard change his spots?”

Lawler said Mercy has hired a “professional lobbyist for the stated purpose of lobbying the state board with regard to a hospital in Crystal Lake.”

Mercy Vice President Richard Gruber said it’s important to note Mercy did not do anything wrong in the 2004 application process and has been cleared by investigators. He said Centegra is using the issue as a diversion.

“We didn’t know about it until federal investigators contacted us,” Gruber said. “During that process, we fully cooperated in the investigation.”

Centegra was also caught up in a similar case with a lobbyist tied to Tony Rezko, Gruber said.

“Mercy and Centegra are fine institutions,” Gruber said. “These institutions have to deal with, unfortunately, the side of some political actors (in Springfield). Personally, it is an evil web that’s been woven out there.”

Aside from the politics, it was residents’ voices that stood out.

A matter of time

Marsha Taylor had to rush her mom to the hospital one winter day. The roads were bad, and she had to travel from her Lake in the Hills home to Elgin.

Her mom got the treatment she needed, but Taylor said she worries about that distance in case of another emergency.

“How many times do doctors say ‘Another 5 or 10 minutes and he or she wouldn’t make it,’” Taylor said.

William Moll, a Lakewood resident, had a different opinion; he said he felt the area doesn’t need another hospital. He said the economic boom is “gone and is not coming back” yet Mercy wants to build a hospital in Crystal Lake. It would be another hospital that would duplicate existing services and would not offer any specialized care, he said.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Moll said.

He uses Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital and feels the hospital is close enough to his home for emergencies. Good Shepherd is about 10 miles from the proposed Crystal Lake hospital.


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