Official Petition: Preserve Healthcare in Ottawa!

Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board

On March 6, 2024, OSF HealthCare announced plans to build a new inpatient hospital in Ottawa.

Although OSF touts “a 26-bed inpatient behavioral health unit, 12 medical/surgical beds and a state-of-the-art surgery suite, emergency services, diagnostic imaging and outpatient care services,” OSF continues to severely minimize the LOSS of access to care and services that the citizens of Ottawa will ultimately be facing.  

Losses include:

  • Elimination of ALL existing ICU beds
  • Elimination of ALL OB/GYN beds
  • Loss of 42 medical-surgical beds (leaving Ottawa with only 12)
  • Reduction of Operating Rooms from 5 operating rooms and 2 procedure rooms to 2 operating rooms and 1 procedure room

In addition to Ottawa facing a significant reduction of access to healthcare services, the city’s largest employer (OSF) will be sending a large majority of those jobs to Peru and surrounding areas.

We are a group of citizens organizing to save healthcare in Ottawa.  Please add your name to our petition and share it with other community members.

To: Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board
From: [Your Name]

I respectfully ask for the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board to vote against the new hospital that OSF is proposing for Ottawa in their Certificate of Need Application # 24-011. Our community citizens and leaders are concerned about the loss of inpatient services in the Intensive Care Unit, the OB/Delivery Unit, and the extreme reduction in the number of inpatient medical/surgical beds from the number we have today.

Saint Elizabeth Medical Center in Ottawa is thriving, and such a substantial reduction in the size and scope of their operations does not make sense when it has operated with a positive net income for years, and it has been awarded for its outcomes in quality and safety measures from industry leaders on performance reporting. Our community is proud of our hospital, the people who work there and the services they provide.

We hope that OSF will reconsider and revise their plans for a new hospital in Ottawa to be sized right for our community, but one that will not remove access to these critical inpatient services.