Group demands Mercy Hospital remain open

A group of African American activists are demanding Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Gov. J.B. Pritzker end their “deafening silence” about the planned closure of Mercy Hospital & Medical Center and fight to keep it open.

“We have endured years of black communities being demonized, while a system has snatched away our basic quality-of-life institutions — those institutions that most Chicagoans take for granted,” Jitu Brown, director of Journey 4 Justice, told reporters gathered outside Mercy Wednesday morning.

The activists say they want Mercy, on the South Side, and St. Anthony’s Hospital on the West Side, to be fully funded or they want the governor and the mayor to support a consolidation plan that fizzled earlier this year due to a lack of state money.

“We want to see more than Black Lives Matter on T-shirts. We want to see more than people putting Black Lives Matter on their websites and renaming statues; none of that changes the conditions of the people in our communities,” Brown said.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Last month, Mercy, the city’s first chartered hospital, announced plans to close in 2021 after a plan to merge with three other money-losing hospitals collapsed when the Illinois General Assembly wrapped up a shortened session without committing any money to the proposal.

Mercy, 2525 S. Michigan Ave., has struggled with financial problems for decades, due in part to a declining population in the surrounding neighborhoods.

When Mercy announced plans to close, the mayor’s office said in a statement it was “saddened to see such a staple institution in our South Side community plan to close its doors.”

Brown said his group plans to submit a “quality-of-life plan” to both Lightfoot’s and Pritzker’s offices, detailing what the group says are much-needed investments in health care, education and economic development in predominantly African America communities.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times