Nashville-based hospital operator Vanguard Health Systems said it will purchase Holy Cross Hospital near Chicago’s Marquette Park for an undisclosed sum.
The 331-bed hospital is the latest acquisition by the for-profit hospital operator in the Chicago area, which has become one of its fastest-growing markets. Vanguard last year purchased Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park and West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park from Resurrection Health Care, a Catholic operator of hospitals in the Chicago area.
Financial terms were not disclosed but the hospital’s owner, Sisters of St. Casimir, which founded the hospital in 1927, said Holy Cross will maintain its Catholic identity after the deal closes.
Like its other Catholic hospital acquisitions, Vanguard agrees to follow the Roman Catholic Church’s “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” which do not allow sterilization procedures as one example.
“We are very excited about continuing to grow our presence in western and southwestern Cook County,” Keith Pitts, chairman of Vanguard Health Systems said in an interview with the Tribune. “We are obviously excited about carrying on the mission the Sisters have carried on there. We will provide them some stability and access to capital, and they will be part of a system that is growing in the market.”
Holy Cross is an independent hospital and has struggled financially in recent years. It also has been unable to grow despite a series of management changes and even “considered closure as a real possibility over the past several years,” Holy Cross said in a statement.
It’s unclear whether Vanguard will keep current management. Wayne Lerner, president and chief executive of Holy Cross said in a statement that the agreement will “save hundreds of jobs” and “fuel the region’s economy.”
The deal will give Vanguard six hospitals in the Chicago area. Vanguard also operates MacNeal Hospital in west suburban Berwyn and Weiss Memorial Hospital on Chicago’s North Side. Vanguard operates 18 hospitals in the U.S. with facilities in Phoenix, San Antonio and central Massachusetts.
So Holy Chop-Shop got sold. Guess the illegals won’t be getting any more free healthcare.
Yes, it’s all those illegals. That’s the problem with health care in this country.
(Greedy insurance companies have nothing to do with it.)
After being on the medical staff for twenty-six years I have to find out the hospital was sold by WGN TV! Thanks! Oh and it’s not the illegals – its all the self-pay patients we get there that never pay.