In the News

Pioneer Press, February 22, 2007

The Lake Forest Hospital Acute Care Center in Grayslake may become a free-standing emergency room, if expansion plans announced this week are approved.

The plan has drawn both praise from officials who say more emergency care is desperately needed and criticism from others who fear it would impact plans for other hospitals throughout northwest Lake County.

State Sen. Susan Garrett, D-29 of Lake Forest, is backing legislation to allow Lake Forest Hospital to convert the acute care center on Route 120 into a full emergency room.

"You can never have enough emergency care available," Garrett said Tuesday. "This would allow the hospital to provide additional services. It would complement any other plan to add hospitals to Lake County."

She said she does not believe this expansion would jeopardize plans from other hospitals to build new facilities.

If approved, the Grayslake Freestanding Emergency Center could be operational by the end of 2007, said Thomas McAfee, president and chief executive officer of Lake Forest Hospital.

The legislation would allow Lake Forest Hospital to expand the Grayslake facility to include 24-hour treatment by emergency physicians and accept ambulance transports from the region. It could also include a landing pad for a helicopter.

Barbara Martin, president and CEO of Vista Health System, said the Lake Forest plan "falls far short of addressing the need for access to comprehensive health care services for Lake County."

Vista has submitted a letter of intent with the Health Facilities Planning Board in January to build a new 140-bed hospital with a full-service emergency department in Lindenhurst. They have collected letters of support for that facility.

The planning board is expected to hold public hearings in the spring on this proposal.

Martin said the Grayslake emergency room plan would "short-circuit and disrupt the health care planning process in Illinois. This appears to be special-interest legislation aimed at helping one entity, and an attempt to bypass Illinois health planning and quality regulation whose frameworks are designed to ensure access to high quality health care for all."

She called the concept a "Band-Aid approach that could pacify some Lake County residents in the short term," but not a long-term solution.

Lake County Board Chair Suzi Schmidt was also concerned about the impact of the Grayslake plan.

"If an emergency room is brought out in this area, it could impact anyone getting a hospital in western Lake County," Schmidt said. "There is a huge concern that it could negatively impact the approval process to put a hospital out west. Of course we all want more services, but an emergency room in Grayslake is still difficult to get to if you live in Antioch."

She said other legislators are looking into the ramifications of the possible expansion.

"I'm worried about people dying because they can't get to a hospital," Schmidt said.