Oak Park’s troubled West Suburban Medical Center failed a village fire safety inspection last month.
On Aug. 11, Oak Park inspectors alerted the hospital that both its sprinkler system and fire alarm system had slipped into violations of the village’s safety code, according to documents obtained by Wednesday Journal via a Freedom of Information Act request.
“Both the fire alarm system and the fire sprinkler system have deficiencies that need to be fixed and they both need to be retested,” inspectors wrote in the documents.
The systems were set to be reinspected by Oak Park staff on Sept. 1, according to the documents.
A Wednesday Journal FOIA request also revealed that the hospital had failed more than two dozen Oak Park elevator inspections since the start of 2023.
Information on these building issues follow months of dysfunction at the safety-net hospital which has spilled out into the public eye.
Since July, Wednesday Journal has covered reported issues at the hospital including accounts of unsafe high temperatures inside the hospital building and the abrupt dismissal of the hospital’s entire Family Birthplace nursing staff.
On Aug. 8, management company Resilience Healthcare shuttered West Sub’s sister hospital — Weiss Memorial in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood — citing financial woes. At a press conference tied to that announcement, Resilience Healthcare CEO Manoj Prasad broke a media silence and acknowledged that West Sub is in bad enough financial straits that leaders make spending decisions based on how much cash arrives on a given day.
At a recent Oak Park village board retreat, Village Manager Kevin Jackson responded to a question from Trustee Jenna Leving Jacobson about the “crisis” at West Suburban Medical Center. He said that the village is working to support the institution, but is also prepared for the worst.
“I can’t unpack that completely tonight, but President Scaman and I are dialed in and we’re thinking about the larger picture, and we will be communicating more,” he said. “We’ve been very engaged on the hospital issue on a variety of fronts. There’s the health and safety of the clientele there, there’s actually how they perform as a neighbor in our community.”
“We also want to look at it from a standpoint of ‘if the worst thing happens.’ We’re thinking about that.”
Jackson has not responded to requests from Wednesday Journal for an interview related to the village’s role with West Sub.
