JOLIET, IL \u2014 the continued closure of essential healthcare services at St. Joseph Medical Center, including obstetrics and gynecology, labor and delivery, pediatrics, psychiatric care, and other vital departments is a devastating loss for the residents of Joliet and our surrounding communities. These are not simply administrative decisions they\u2019re decisions that will have a direct impact on the health, safety, and well-being of thousands of families. <\/p>\n
When expectant mothers must travel farther to deliver their babies, when children lose access to nearby pediatric care, and when individuals experiencing a mental health crisis have fewer treatment options, every mile traveled, every delayed diagnosis, and every extended wait for care can have life-altering consequences. This is also a public safety issue. As essential hospital services disappear, neighboring hospitals, emergency departments, ambulance services, firefighters, police officers, and other first responders are left to absorb the increased demand. I have witnessed these challenges firsthand. When my father suffered a serious heart-related medical emergency, he waited more than 12 hours to receive the care he needed at another regional hospital due to the strain. This was horrific for our family. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JOLIET, IL \u2014 the continued closure of essential healthcare services at St. Joseph Medical Center, including obstetrics and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":877913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":["post-877912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/877913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}