Patlola said he\u2019s also open to talking with other organizations \u201cthat may be willing to assume management and clinical operations at West Suburban Medical Center.\u201d<\/p>\n
Typically, the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board must approve a new interim operator for a hospital, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t immediately clear Friday what other hurdles might need to be cleared before Insight could step in.<\/p>\n
Attempts to reach Dr. Manoj Prasad, the head of Resilience Healthcare, which runs West Suburban, were unsuccessful.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Patlola said Friday that Patlola does not need Prasad\u2019s authorization to structure a deal with another organization to provide services at West Suburban. The spokesperson said Patlola is \u201cevaluating all legal options\u201d to ensure the hospital stays open and \u201cis hopeful that Prasad will not be an obstacle in that effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Resilience took over West Suburban and Weiss Memorial Hospital in 2022, the agreement was that Resilience would run the hospitals, and Patlola\u2019s company Ramco Healthcare Holdings would own the land on which the hospitals sat, with Resilience entering into long-term lease agreements with Patlola.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the property owner of the hospital and a minority partner in Resilience Healthcare, I want to be clear that I have not been involved in the hospital\u2019s clinical operations or day-to-day management,\u201d Patlola said in a statement. \u201cHowever, I have grown increasingly concerned about the trajectory of hospital operations, which has led to a reduction in services and, now, the imminent closure of this critical community asset.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Workers](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/PPN-L-WEST-SUBURBAN-CLOSE-IMPACT-0402-03_da9432-e1774652224352.jpg\")
Workers cover an “Emergency” sign at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park on March 26, 2026. (Cam’ron Hardy\/Pioneer Press)<\/p>\n
Patlola said in the statement that the loss of West Suburban would \u201chave a profound and lasting impact on access to care and community health outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The news of West Suburban\u2019s closure earlier this week sent patients scrambling, nearby hospitals making preparations to absorb more patients and workers readying for unemployment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hundreds of jobs are expected to be affected by the closure of West Suburban, Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Chicago Democrat, told the Tribune.<\/p>\n
Ford said it could be difficult for West Suburban to reopen under its current leadership. Prasad had been pressing for more money from the state and for an advance on funds from the state, Ford said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Tribune reported in October that West Suburban owed $41.6 million<\/a> in unpaid taxes and penalties to the state of Illinois.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s bad for the Oak Park and the Austin communities,\u201d Ford said of West Suburban\u2019s closure. \u201cIt could be a matter of life and death for some, especially for the bordering community of Austin, more so than Oak Park because Oak Park still has Rush Oak Park.\u201d<\/p>\n Rush Oak Park Hospital sits less than 2.5 miles from West Suburban.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Rush Oak Park Hospital said in a statement Friday that the hospital has not yet seen higher numbers of ambulance visits but \u201cwe are prepared for some increase in patient volumes and are confident in our ability to safely care for any new or transferred patients.\u201d<\/p>\n Loretto Hospital, which is less than 2.5 miles from West Suburban, but to the south, did not provide comment Friday.<\/p>\n The Oak Park Fire Department was told that West Suburban\u2019s emergency department stopped accepting emergency department ambulances and walk-ins Wednesday, according to the village of Oak Park. The hospital had about 70 patients it was either working to discharge or transfer to other hospitals by the end of the day Friday, according to the Village.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLosing access to a hospital, even temporarily, is frightening, and we recognize that for many in our community, \u2018West Sub\u2019 wasn\u2019t just the closest option, it was their only option,\u201d Village President Vicki Scaman said in a statement earlier this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n A notice posted on the hospital\u2019s website Friday said the hospital had, \u201csuspended all patient care services due to an ongoing technology related challenge that needs to be addressed before we can resume services.\u201d<\/p>\n On Thursday afternoon, some patients and families were just learning about the closure.<\/p>\n Mary McCullough went Thursday to visit her 18-year-old niece who had been hospitalized for a week at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park. She was surprised as paramedics were preparing to transport her niece from the building.<\/p>\n She said the family wasn\u2019t made aware that the hospital was closing until Thursday morning, a day after the hospital already closed down some of its operations.<\/p>\n McCullough said her niece\u2019s mother saw paramedics were preparing to transport her niece, who suffers from several medical issues. They had not known why she was being transported until the paramedics informed the family that the hospital was closing. After the family conferred with doctors, she said, her niece was eventually transferred to Lurie Children\u2019s Hospital in Chicago.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand if the hospital was closing, but for you to not tell the patients that they\u2019re going to be transferred out, and she did not even know that, that\u2019s just not right,\u201d McCullough said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s bad because then now everybody\u2019s scrambling to find somewhere to put the patients.\u201d<\/p>\n A hospital employee who asked to remain anonymous said workers were told via an email from Prasad that the hospital would be closing. Other than that, Prasad had not communicated with the staff at the hospital as of Thursday, the employee said.<\/p>\n Diana Cortes, who was leaving a clinic inside of West Suburban Thursday, said she began visiting the hospital in February after moving to Chicago last summer, and was unsure how to feel after finding out about the hospital closing.<\/p>\n \u201cI was planning on coming back in the next few months, so I\u2019ll either have to hunt my doctor down or see if I missed an email or something,\u201d Cortes said.<\/p>\n The closure also took some state leaders by surprise, including Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, who said his youngest daughter was born there.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile West Suburban\u2019s problems have been well documented, I was surprised by the sudden announcement,\u201d said Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat. \u201cWe\u2019d been working to try to prevent this very situation.\u201d<\/p>\n Harmon called it a \u201csad day\u201d and said that he\u2019d been in touch with state agency leaders and the governor\u2019s office about next steps for patients, employees and the community.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Public Health said in a statement Friday the department was also \u201cdisappointed by the lack of advance notice and clear communication from hospital leadership.\u201d Typically, hospitals file applications with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board before closing entirely.<\/p>\n \u201cTransparency and advance notice are essential in order to protect patients, staff, and the communities it serves,\u201d the health department spokesperson said in the statement. \u201cIDPH will work closely with West Suburban, local hospitals and other healthcare providers to help minimize the disruption of care caused by this suspension of services.\u201d<\/p>\n West Suburban\u2019s troubles<\/a> started long before this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2019, for-profit Tenet Healthcare sold West Suburban, Weiss Memorial and Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park to California-based, for-profit company Pipeline Health for $70 million. Pipeline quickly closed Westlake citing financial losses, stunning community leaders<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Several years later, Pipeline sold West Suburban and Weiss<\/a> to the new, for-profit company Resilience Healthcare for $92 million. At the time, Prasad touted his ability to turnaround struggling hospitals.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the past 30 years I\u2019ve had the privilege of leading numerous health care organizations and have rescued a number of challenged facilities,\u201d Prasad told the Health Facilities and Services Review Board in 2022 as Resilience sought to buy Weiss and West Suburban.<\/p>\n In August, a little more than three years later, Weiss closed<\/a> after the federal government barred the Uptown hospital from receiving Medicare dollars, saying it was out of compliance with rules related to nursing services, physical environment and emergency services. In June, the Illinois Department of Public Health had conducted an on-site investigation at the hospital<\/a> and found temperatures in the high 80s in the hospital\u2019s intensive care unit and emergency department after the hospital\u2019s air conditioning failed.<\/p>\n At the time, Prasad said that West Suburban could also be in trouble. \u201cAny hospital can do that, I hate to say, with the environment that has changed,\u201d he said in August of Weiss\u2019 closure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A deal might be in the works to keep West Suburban Medical Center open, after the Oak Park…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":687526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,288450,288454,288452,288455,288453,67,132,68,288451,288449],"class_list":["post-687525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-insight-hospital-medical-center","tag-manoj-prasad","tag-pipeline-health","tag-rathnaker-reddy","tag-resilience-healthcare","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-weiss-memorial-hospital","tag-west-suburban-medical-center"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116305979363394500","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"West](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/CTC-L-west-suburban-hospital-2-04.jpg\")
West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park on March 27, 2026. The hospital abruptly announced it was suspending patient care this week.\u00a0(Terrence Antonio James\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n