News this week that one major Lake County hospital plans to eliminate its psychiatric ward and another will shift adult psychiatric services to Evanston Hospital has sparked criticism and concerns about the availability of acute mental health care.
State Sen. Terry Link (D-Vernon Hills) and state Rep. Karen May (D-Highland Park) said Wednesday they plan to hold public hearings on the decision by Condell Medical Center in Libertyville to close 20 beds and by Highland Park Hospital to use its 18 acute-care beds for adolescents only and refer adult patients to Evanston Hospital.
Meanwhile, a group of psychiatrists at Highland Park Hospital sent a letter to the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board alleging that with the decision Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, the hospital’s owner, failed to comply with state regulations.
“Those with mental illnesses could be hurt by the closure of these two facilities,” Link said. “I believe the public deserves an answer why these facilities are closing.”
Link and May said they will schedule a hearing after meeting privately with officials at Evanston Northwestern on Friday.
The legislators said they are concerned that the closest available in-patient psychiatric units for adults in southern Lake County will be at Provena St. Therese Medical Center in Waukegan and Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington.
Condell Medical Center in Libertyville said it decided to discontinue 20 in-patient psychiatric beds to make room for other services and because advances in psychiatric drugs have made outpatient care more effective. The hospital also said managed health care’s emphasis on outpatient treatment in physicians’ offices has made it difficult to fill the beds.
At Highland Park Hospital, Evanston Northwestern officials said they are merely rearranging bed locations, but psychiatrists there argue that the change will essentially eliminate any meaningful acute mental health care at the hospital.
The two sides cannot even agree on the number of beds in Highland Park’s psychiatric unit. Dr. Ronald Baron, a psychiatrist on staff at Highland Park Hospital, said there are 27 licensed beds for children and adults. But Joan Trezek, spokeswoman for Evanston Northwestern, said only 18 beds are staffed because only 11 or 12 beds are filled per day. Evanston Northwestern said it plans to use those 18 beds for its new Center of Excellence, for child and adolescent in-patient psychiatric care, which is scheduled to open March 1. Adults in need of acute mental health care can be admitted to the 17-bed psychiatric unit at Evanston Hospital, also owned by Evanston Northwestern, Trezek said.
“This move is designed to fill a void in children’s services in Lake County,” she said.
Baron argued that the existing unit has not been able to fill its adolescent beds, and records show that 621 adults–versus 229 adolescents–stayed in the unit in 2000. Also, only seven of Evanston Hospital’s beds are available for private patients with the rest for indigent-care patients, he said.
State law requires hospitals to apply for and receive a certificate of need from the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board before closing a unit or drastically reducing a service. As part of its application process, Condell has scheduled a public hearing for 9:30 a.m. Friday at Libertyville Village Hall.
Evanston Northwestern said it is not discontinuing any beds and therefore does not have to acquire a certificate of need, as psychiatrists at Highland Park Hospital maintain. Jena Welliever, spokeswoman for the state planning board, said the agency plans to write a letter to Evanston Northwestern asking it to respond to the psychiatrists’ complaint about a possible violation of state regulations.
