Illinois lawmakers and a deputy governor gathered with community members Monday evening to discuss the future of the now-shuttered West Suburban Medical Center – though no one offered a specific path forward and the state leaders didn’t directly speak about the hospital’s new potential owner during the meeting.

The community meeting came just weeks after the owners of West Suburban Medical Center reached a settlement agreement that’s expected to result in a sale of the hospital and its sister facility, Weiss Memorial Hospital, to Insight Health Systems. The hospitals’ two owners had been fighting one another in court for months, after one of them closed West Suburban in March, saying that problems with the hospital’s billing system had left it short on cash. Weiss closed in August 2025.

Neither of the lawmakers in attendance – Illinois Senate President Don Harmon and Illinois House Assistant Majority Leader Camille Y. Lilly – discussed Insight specifically during the meeting, though Harmon expressed broad concerns about the hospital’s future, telling the crowd, “We should not view opening a bad hospital as progress.”

After the meeting, Harmon told the Tribune he has “great reservations about Insight based on their track record both in Illinois and other states.”

Lilly told the Tribune, after the meeting, “From what I heard today, I don’t believe the community has confidence in Insight and I’m behind the community.”

Insight Chicago owns Insight Hospital and Medical Center in Bronzeville, formerly called Mercy Hospital, which it bought for $1 in 2021 when Mercy was on the brink of closure. Though it has kept that hospital open, Insight owes the state $48 million in loans, according to the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. It also closed a hospital it owned in Ohio in late 2025, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

A spokesperson for Insight said in a statement Monday night after the meeting that “the community is understandably concerned about supporting another operator.”  He said Insight’s immediate job “is to assess and investigate the current situation at both facilities (physical plant, finances, medical records, staffing, etc) and after a 90-day due diligence period make a recommendation on the feasibility of a path forward for each hospital.”

He said Insight has made “no predictions on what that due diligence might determine and if the hospitals would be viable to reopen, especially with a lack of state financial support, as well as the downward pressures facing safety net and community hospitals with the impending federal actions.”

The spokesperson acknowledged that Insight has financial challenges as do “all safety net hospitals in the state of Illinois.” He said Insight has added new lines of service and specialty practices at its Bronzeville hospital since taking it over five years ago.

No one from Insight spoke during the meeting Monday evening. When asked if Insight leaders were invited to the event, Harmon said, “It’s a community meeting. Everybody was invited.”

Deputy Gov. Grace Hou also spoke at the meeting Monday evening, an appearance that came after months of the governor’s office keeping its distance from the saga over West Suburban.

Hou told the crowd Monday evening that she was “so grateful I’ve been invited into this community to listen” and she did not express an opinion about Insight potentially owning the hospital.

The Chicago Medical Society and West Suburban doctors had together asked the governor’s office in April to intervene, requesting that Gov. JB Pritzker use his executive authority to reopen the hospital, direct emergency funding to the hospital to stabilize operations and appoint an interim management team.

At the time, a spokesperson for the governor’s office said in a statement, “It is outside of the Governor’s authority to intervene in the matters of a private business, including those of a privately-owned medical facility.”

Though state leaders didn’t talk about Insight specifically during the meeting, Harmon did express frustration that the fight over the hospital has been largely between private entities.

“The state can support it, the state can hold it accountable, but we can’t walk in and take the keys,” Harmon said of West Suburban.

Later in the meeting, in response to a speaker who criticized the state’s actions leading up to the hospital’s closure, Harmon said: “The state of Illinois has some culpability here. We oversaw this hospital. … Nobody wanted to walk in and close the hospital, so maybe we hoped against hope for too long.”

A recent Tribune investigation revealed state officials missed red flags as they approved the hospitals’ sale to the previous owner and failed to follow rules as they gave money to the hospitals. The company behind West Suburban and Weiss Memorial Hospital received more than $24 million in state grants while accumulating debts of roughly $100 million in state loans and unpaid taxes, the Tribune found.

“They haven’t paid us back, and they haven’t paid their taxes,” Harmon said of Resilience Healthcare, which was the owner that shuttered West Suburban in Oak Park and Weiss in Uptown. “It’s still closed, and we need answers on where that money went and whether we’re going to see any of it back.”

Harmon and Lilly had been scheduled to speak at a previous town hall meeting in August but pulled out shortly before that event, which was held at Malcolm X College on the city’s West Side. At the time, Harmon and Lilly said in a statement, “Organizers planned the event outside the community and, without informing us, added executives from Insight Hospital to the program.”

The organizers of that previous town hall – community and faith leaders – then propped up posters on-stage featuring photos of the two lawmakers with signs saying “NO-SHOW” across their chests.

Some community members and former employees, however, also said Monday evening they had questions about Insight as the hospital’s new owner. Former West Suburban employee Sylvia Williams, who oversaw nurses in two departments, said she wasn’t sure if Insight would be financially able to resurrect and run West Suburban.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, community member James Hammonds expressed frustration that the state didn’t keep a closer eye on West Suburban and Weiss in recent years, and he said the state should require the next owner to more thoroughly show how they intend to run the hospital.

“The state of Illinois is partially at fault,” Hammonds said to cheers from the crowd. “They let them do whatever they wanted to do.”

Community member Clabe Johnson also said the hospital’s next owner should be held accountable.

“We need a watchdog for these safety-net hospitals,” Johnson told the lawmakers and crowd.

Any ownership change of the hospitals would have to be approved by the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board.