Provident Hospital will begin accepting ambulance runs again beginning Wednesday after a hiatus of more than a decade.
“This is an exciting milestone and one that comes after a significant amount of investment and focus on this treasured and historic community hospital,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said Tuesday at a news conference held downtown.
In addition to renovations to the emergency department, the hospital recently saw upgrades to its dialysis center and received a new MRI machine — all at a cost of more than $5 million.
Provident, at 500 E. 51st St., is a county-run, safety-net hospital providing health care for many who have nowhere else to go.
Ambulance services were cut in 2011. Patients have arrived at the hospital’s emergency department on foot or by car since then.
Hospital officials over the last 18 months have been working to create a model that’s sustainable, Cook County Health CEO Israel Rocha said.
“We are excited that hopefully this year will be the first year in quite a while that Provident is financially sustainable on its own,” he said.
Each year, Provident sees nearly 19,000 patients in its emergency department.
“We expect to see volume increase by a few thousand annually and admissions to increase proportionally,” Rocha said.
“The importance of today cannot be overstated,” County Commissioner Bill Lowry said. “When a loved one is experiencing a massive heart attack, they deserve to receive treatment within, not outside, the community.”
Asked why ambulance service was cut in 2011 at Provident Hospital, Preckwinkle said, “I can’t speak to that. I’m not a doctor. I’m not in the health care field, and although it happened early in my tenure, the leadership that made that decision is no longer with us.”
The Sun-Times reported in 2011 that suspending ambulance runs at Provident was part of a plan to shift away from costly inpatient care in favor of providing more primary care and specialty services.
The hospital is trying to reverse course.
This summer, Preckwinkle postponed plans to build an eight-story hospital next to the current one due to cost overruns, giving county health officials the chance to tweak the plan and services the hospital offers.
