By Sarah Fentem
Belleville News-Democrat
GRANITE CITY, Ill. — Illinois regulators are preparing to potentially transfer patients out of Gateway Regional Medical Center in Granite City and ambulances are being sent to other hospitals.
The hospital is still open, but the Illinois Department of Public Health confirmed Gateway and another medical center owned by the same company are on bypass status due to “staffing instability.”
St. Louis -based KMOV first reported the development.
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The operators of the 278-bed safety net hospital have been late paying staff. An IDPH spokesman said that the agency had alerted the state’s labor and employment security departments about unmet payroll at Gateway and at Vista Medical Center in Waukegan, Illinois.
Both hospitals are owned by California -based company American Healthcare Systems.
“Gateway and Vista are private, for-profit hospitals whose operations and finances are managed by American Healthcare Systems. Their lack of communication, transparency, and responsible financial management and contingency planning is extremely concerning,” the spokesman for the IDPH said in an email. “The Illinois Department of Public Health’s highest immediate priority is the health and safety of the patients and has been working and communicating with hospital administrative leaders in this regard.”
Representatives from Gateway Regional Medical Center and American Healthcare Systems did not respond to interview requests Tuesday.
This is not the first time the hospital has been late paying employees. Earlier this year, the Granite City hospital reportedly had to issue paper checks to employees and delayed some payments to staff health savings accounts.
According to American Healthcare Systems owner Michael Sarian, the executive and his wife put $1 million of his own money into the company to help fund payroll and other operational expenses at Gateway Regional Medical Center.
Nearly half of the hospital’s patients are on Medicaid, according to state records.
An American Healthcare Systems representative said in a statement August that the hospital’s challenges predate the company’s 2023 purchase and “Safety-net hospitals across Illinois face a reimbursement system that pays late and below cost.”
The state does not have the ability to take over management of the hospital or to close it down, according to IDPH’s spokesman, but patients will need to be transferred if the hospital has inadequate staffing, is unable to provide needed services or constitutes an unsafe environment.
IDPH officials are meeting with the leadership at both Gateway and Vista to “offer support around contingency planning for the safe care of patients and other areas of concern,” a statement from the department read.
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