The murky future of West Suburban Medical Center is in the hands of a Cook County judge after an eviction notice was served at the hospital this week.
Several 5-day eviction notices were placed on an entry to West Suburban Medical Center’s River Forest campus addressed to Resilience Health CEO Manoj Prasad from Ramco Holdings, the hospital’s landlord and part-owner. The notices alleged that there is more than $7.25 million in unpaid rent owed to Ramco for the hospital.
This legal tangle is the latest piece of fallout to come from West Suburban Medical Center’s abrupt closure last month, with the safety-net hospital halting patient services at its Oak Park and River Forest campuses on March 27 as Prasad said the system didn’t have the money to cover payroll expenses. The eviction notice served at the River Forest property came just days before the hospital resumed some clinic-level patient care services at West Suburban Medical Center’s main Oak Park campus, although the hospital’s emergency room and inpatient care operations remain closed.
Prasad challenged the eviction in Cook County court on Tuesday, accusing Ramco owner Reddy Rathnaker Patlola of sabotaging West Sub and its now-closed Weiss Memorial sister hospital in Chicago by refusing to make necessary repairs. Though Patlola is also a 40% owner of Resilience Healthcare, his representative said he was not involved in the management or operations of West Suburban.
Prasad’s 54-page complaint claims that he and Patlola had an arrangement where the rent for the hospital’s land would only be $1 per year until it became profitable.
“This matter arises from the latest escalation in a series of improper acts perpetrated by Ramco and its owner, Rathnakar Reddy Patlola to sabotage the operations of Weiss Memorial and West Suburban and substitute in new management for financial gain,” attorneys wrote in Prasad’s legal complaint. “The relationship between Dr. Prasad and Patlola deteriorated over time after Dr. Prasad requested, on Resilience Healthcare’s behalf, that Ramco comply with its obligations to perform repairs and fix serious issues at both hospitals, including the hospitals heating and cooling systems and elevators. Patlola, on behalf of Ramco, repeatedly refused, claiming that he would not pay for repairs until he received more revenue from the hospitals—even though the lease agreement he signed on Ramco’s behalf expressly provides that additional rent would not be coming until the hospitals were profitable.”
The eviction battle follows a public split between Prasad and Patlola. Prasad’s legal complaint said the business partners’ relationship reached a breaking point in February.
“Despite hearing from Dr. Prasad that he was attempting to secure financial help, Patlola became increasingly irate during his discussions about hospital operations and again and demanded rent,” Prasad’s attorneys argued. “He told Dr. Prasad that he would hold press conferences disparaging Dr. Prasad to the media and ‘make everyone’s life a living hell’ until Patlola received ‘half a million in rent every month and property taxes immediately.’”
West Sub’s Oak Park campus has nearly $5 million in unpaid property taxes from the 2024 and 2025 tax years, Wednesday Journal reported last week.
Through a press representative earlier this month, Patlola called for West Sub to continue without Prasad’s involvement as he reportedly courted a deal with Insight Chicago, a non-profit agency that took over operations of Mercy Hospital, a failing institution in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood.
A status hearing in the eviction case was held on Wednesday morning. In advance of that hearing, Patlola sought support from local elected leaders saying that he planned to file a motion for emergency receivership for the hospital.
He wrote to State Rep. La Shawn Ford this week asking for his support and saying that Prasad’s claims were fraudulent, and that a deal with Insight is imminent, Wednesday Journal has learned.
“He sued us today, presenting a fraudulent document that claims I signed a lease with him for $1 rent per year,” he wrote to Ford. “Despite this, we are moving forward with filing for emergency receivership this Thursday. To succeed, we urgently need letters of support from community leaders emphasizing the hospital’s necessity, as well as letters from furloughed employees expressing their desire to return to work. It will be great if we can get letters from elected Representatives for the benefit of their constituents (ie patients) that will be golden. This is an uphill battle, but I am giving this my last shot to save the hospital and bring our staff back. Insight Hospital is ready to take over and reopen the facility ASAP, but we need significant community support to convince the judge.”
Patlola’s press representative did not respond to inquiries from Wednesday Journal this week.
Hospital leadership announced the closure of West Sub last month citing a prolonged failure in the hospital’s billing system that resulted in as much as 90% of its work going unbilled. Resilience has since hired dozens of people to try and collect payment for the 120,000 outstanding claims related to West Sub services, the company announced earlier this week.
In the months leading up to the closure, Wednesday Journal reported on a variety of financial issues at West Sub and at Resilience Healthcare including unpaid vendors, the loss of the hospital’s once-revered doctor residency program and the millions owed in state and local taxes.