County commissioner calls for south suburban trauma center after complaints of poor service at Ingalls Memorial Hospital
Cook Commissioner Monica Gordon (second from left), businessman Early Walker (center) and Shavon Ingram (second from right) pose at Ingalls Memorial Hospital, calling for better service and a trauma center in the south suburbs.
David Struett/Sun-Times
A Cook County commissioner is calling for a trauma center to be built in the south suburbs after complaints of poor service at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey.
Commissioner Monica Gordon said long wait times and short staffing at the hospital are a result of the “interconnected disparities” in the mostly Black and brown south suburbs “that has to be addressed.”
She wants a trauma center to be built in the south suburbs so patients don’t have to travel to miles to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn or the University of Chicago Medical Center for treatment.
On Sunday, Gordon met outside the hospital with a few other people who say their family members have had troubling experiences at Ingalls.
Early Walker, owner of a tow company and violence prevention group “I’m Telling, Don’t Shoot,” said his mother had fallen in a school parking lot in Harvey last Friday and had a miserable health care experience at Ingalls.
After waiting more than 30 minutes for an ambulance due to a dispatching issue, Walker’s mother waited for over an hour to be let into the emergency department, despite bleeding from her head.
UChicago Medicine, which bought Ingalls in 2016, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Walker posted his grievance on social media and said he received scores of messages from people who also reported bad experiences at Ingalls.
One of them was Shavon Ingram, whose father who’s in his 70s collapsed in his yard last week. Even though a tree branch punctured the side of his head, he was left waiting for hours to be let into the emergency department, Ingram said.
Ingalls was the first community hospital to be purchased by the university.
UChicago increased its investment in Ingalls Memorial in 2022 to $99.5 million, the hospital system said in a yearly report. The hospital system increased its investments by 13% over the prior year in its South Side and south suburban hospitals, according to the report.