A deal might be in the works to keep West Suburban Medical Center open, after the Oak Park hospital abruptly announced it was suspending patient care this week.
Reddy Rathnaker Patlola, who owns the hospital property and is a minority partner in Resilience Healthcare, which operates West Suburban, said in a statement Friday that he reached out to Insight Hospital & Medical Center in Chicago “to explore whether they can play a constructive role in stabilizing operations at West Suburban.”
Insight President and CEO Atif Bawahab confirmed to the Tribune on Friday that he’s been in discussions with Patlola, and that the nonprofit Insight could be an interim operator and manager of the hospital, allowing it to reopen. Insight would also be open to operating the hospital in the long term, if it can get the necessary approvals, Bawahab said.
“We are looking to stabilize the hospital and the services there just to ensure that the community still has a hospital and a health care center there, both in the short term, immediate sense as well as long term,” Bawahab said.
“Right now our immediate priority and goal is just to support the hospital and the current staff and the current patients and ensure there’s continuity of care for the patients,” Bawahab said.
Insight has experience dealing with hospitals in crisis. In 2021, Insight Chicago paid $1 to buy Bronzeville’s Mercy Hospital, which was otherwise slated to close. Insight then renamed Mercy to Insight Hospital & Medical Center.
Patlola said he’s also open to talking with other organizations “that may be willing to assume management and clinical operations at West Suburban Medical Center.”
Typically, the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board must approve a new interim operator for a hospital, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
It wasn’t immediately clear Friday what other hurdles might need to be cleared before Insight could step in.
Attempts to reach Dr. Manoj Prasad, the head of Resilience Healthcare, which runs West Suburban, were unsuccessful.
A spokesperson for Patlola said Friday that Patlola does not need Prasad’s authorization to structure a deal with another organization to provide services at West Suburban. The spokesperson said Patlola is “evaluating all legal options” to ensure the hospital stays open and “is hopeful that Prasad will not be an obstacle in that effort.”
When Resilience took over West Suburban and Weiss Memorial Hospital in 2022, the agreement was that Resilience would run the hospitals, and Patlola’s company Ramco Healthcare Holdings would own the land on which the hospitals sat, with Resilience entering into long-term lease agreements with Patlola.
“As the property owner of the hospital and a minority partner in Resilience Healthcare, I want to be clear that I have not been involved in the hospital’s clinical operations or day-to-day management,” Patlola said in a statement. “However, I have grown increasingly concerned about the trajectory of hospital operations, which has led to a reduction in services and, now, the imminent closure of this critical community asset.”
Workers cover an “Emergency” sign at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park on March 26, 2026. (Cam’ron Hardy/Pioneer Press)
Patlola said in the statement that the loss of West Suburban would “have a profound and lasting impact on access to care and community health outcomes.”
The news of West Suburban’s closure earlier this week sent patients scrambling, nearby hospitals making preparations to absorb more patients and workers readying for unemployment.
Hundreds of jobs are expected to be affected by the closure of West Suburban, Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Chicago Democrat, told the Tribune.
Ford said it could be difficult for West Suburban to reopen under its current leadership. Prasad had been pressing for more money from the state and for an advance on funds from the state, Ford said.
The Tribune reported in October that West Suburban owed $41.6 million in unpaid taxes and penalties to the state of Illinois.
“It’s bad for the Oak Park and the Austin communities,” Ford said of West Suburban’s closure. “It could be a matter of life and death for some, especially for the bordering community of Austin, more so than Oak Park because Oak Park still has Rush Oak Park.”
Rush Oak Park Hospital sits less than 2.5 miles from West Suburban.
A spokesperson for Rush Oak Park Hospital said in a statement Friday that the hospital has not yet seen higher numbers of ambulance visits but “we are prepared for some increase in patient volumes and are confident in our ability to safely care for any new or transferred patients.”
Loretto Hospital, which is less than 2.5 miles from West Suburban, but to the south, did not provide comment Friday.
The Oak Park Fire Department was told that West Suburban’s emergency department stopped accepting emergency department ambulances and walk-ins Wednesday, according to the village of Oak Park. The hospital had about 70 patients it was either working to discharge or transfer to other hospitals by the end of the day Friday, according to the Village.
“Losing access to a hospital, even temporarily, is frightening, and we recognize that for many in our community, ‘West Sub’ wasn’t just the closest option, it was their only option,” Village President Vicki Scaman said in a statement earlier this week.
A notice posted on the hospital’s website Friday said the hospital had, “suspended all patient care services due to an ongoing technology related challenge that needs to be addressed before we can resume services.”
West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park on March 27, 2026. The hospital abruptly announced it was suspending patient care this week. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)
On Thursday afternoon, some patients and families were just learning about the closure.
Mary McCullough went Thursday to visit her 18-year-old niece who had been hospitalized for a week at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park. She was surprised as paramedics were preparing to transport her niece from the building.
She said the family wasn’t made aware that the hospital was closing until Thursday morning, a day after the hospital already closed down some of its operations.
McCullough said her niece’s mother saw paramedics were preparing to transport her niece, who suffers from several medical issues. They had not known why she was being transported until the paramedics informed the family that the hospital was closing. After the family conferred with doctors, she said, her niece was eventually transferred to Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.
“I understand if the hospital was closing, but for you to not tell the patients that they’re going to be transferred out, and she did not even know that, that’s just not right,” McCullough said. “And that’s bad because then now everybody’s scrambling to find somewhere to put the patients.”
A hospital employee who asked to remain anonymous said workers were told via an email from Prasad that the hospital would be closing. Other than that, Prasad had not communicated with the staff at the hospital as of Thursday, the employee said.
Diana Cortes, who was leaving a clinic inside of West Suburban Thursday, said she began visiting the hospital in February after moving to Chicago last summer, and was unsure how to feel after finding out about the hospital closing.
“I was planning on coming back in the next few months, so I’ll either have to hunt my doctor down or see if I missed an email or something,” Cortes said.
The closure also took some state leaders by surprise, including Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, who said his youngest daughter was born there.
“While West Suburban’s problems have been well documented, I was surprised by the sudden announcement,” said Harmon, an Oak Park Democrat. “We’d been working to try to prevent this very situation.”
Harmon called it a “sad day” and said that he’d been in touch with state agency leaders and the governor’s office about next steps for patients, employees and the community.
A spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Public Health said in a statement Friday the department was also “disappointed by the lack of advance notice and clear communication from hospital leadership.” Typically, hospitals file applications with the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board before closing entirely.
“Transparency and advance notice are essential in order to protect patients, staff, and the communities it serves,” the health department spokesperson said in the statement. “IDPH will work closely with West Suburban, local hospitals and other healthcare providers to help minimize the disruption of care caused by this suspension of services.”
West Suburban’s troubles started long before this week.
In 2019, for-profit Tenet Healthcare sold West Suburban, Weiss Memorial and Westlake Hospital in Melrose Park to California-based, for-profit company Pipeline Health for $70 million. Pipeline quickly closed Westlake citing financial losses, stunning community leaders.
Several years later, Pipeline sold West Suburban and Weiss to the new, for-profit company Resilience Healthcare for $92 million. At the time, Prasad touted his ability to turnaround struggling hospitals.
“Over the past 30 years I’ve had the privilege of leading numerous health care organizations and have rescued a number of challenged facilities,” Prasad told the Health Facilities and Services Review Board in 2022 as Resilience sought to buy Weiss and West Suburban.
In August, a little more than three years later, Weiss closed after the federal government barred the Uptown hospital from receiving Medicare dollars, saying it was out of compliance with rules related to nursing services, physical environment and emergency services. In June, the Illinois Department of Public Health had conducted an on-site investigation at the hospital and found temperatures in the high 80s in the hospital’s intensive care unit and emergency department after the hospital’s air conditioning failed.
At the time, Prasad said that West Suburban could also be in trouble. “Any hospital can do that, I hate to say, with the environment that has changed,” he said in August of Weiss’ closure.