A packed school auditorium filled with mostly disgruntled Ottawans faced members of the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board, and they gave the board a piece of their mind.

The public hearing addressed the application before the board for a new OSF St. Elizabeth Ottawa campus, that would redistribute services between there and the hospital in Peru.  Fifty three people spoke up at the hearing Thursday afternoon,  overwhelmingly and often vehemently opposed to OSF HealthCare’s plan. The plan calls for a new hospital with less beds than the current Ottawa hospital. Also intensive care and OB services would seemingly shift to Peru.

Several of the speakers were members of a local action group known as Citizens for Healthcare in Ottawa, which recently filed an antitrust suit with the Department of Justice, alleging that OSF has a monopoly on healthcare in the Illinois Valley. Colleen Burns is part of that group. She says the main goal is for OSF to pause their plans and take their application off the board, and come back with a better plan.

OSF HealthCare COO Mike Cruz was at Thursday’s hearing. He says it was important to hear all the comments.

The next step in the approval process the state board to consider all the testimony and meet August 8. The location and agenda  of the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board meeting will be announced 48 hours before the meeting.  It is a public meeting. 

Concerned individuals may still email or mail their comments to the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board. Those thoughts must be received by July 19.