Construction is getting started on a $12.3 million cancer center at Presence Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in Chicago. The facility represents a redevelopment that is being driven by a community “visioning” process and a population health focus.
For more than a century, the hospitals have anchored the ethnically and economically diverse Humboldt Park, Ukranian Village and Wicker Park neighborhoods in the city's West Town community. St. Mary and St. Elizabeth merged in 2008 and became part of the 11-hospital Presence Health Catholic healthcare system that was created in 2011.
Hospital officials said the community's cancer cases are expected to increase by 18% in the next 10 years. The new Center for Cancer and Specialty Care, expected to open next summer, will include a linear accelerator, expanded infusion service, a pharmacy and a patient-education resource center offering expanded community programming.
The hospital held a weeklong series of programs last month soliciting ideas from its neighbors about what they wanted in the community and what they wanted from the hospital. There was a call for Sts. Mary and Elizabeth to be “a champion of senior housing,” and to provide some type of urgent-care facility for behavioral health.
“Ready or not, change is here—I like that,” Hospital CEO Martin Judd said at the start of the process. At the end, he proclaimed: “We can do this.”
Alderman Billy Ocasio, who represents the community in the Chicago City Council, attended the opening session and praised the hospital for listening to its neighbors. Too often these types of plans are developed behind closed doors and then sprung on a community with little input allowed or feedback solicited, he said.
“I would say that it's always good when an institution such as this hospital reaches out,” Ocasio said. “The whole healthcare industry is changing, and it's about going beyond traditional services."
