Hearing planned on mental health center closing

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Illinois Rep. Al Riley, D-Hazel Crest, questions administration officials from Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's office about the cost and safety of plans to close a Tinley Park mental hospital and a Jacksonville developmental center and move patients to community care, during a legislative commission hearing at the Illinois State Capitol Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012 in Springfield, Ill. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

Updated: March 11, 2012 8:50AM

Although plans remain intact to close the Tinley Park Mental Health Center this summer, a bipartisan state commission plans to hold a hearing about the closing and its impact on mental health care in the region.

Quinn recently announced plans to close the center by early July, after the state’s fiscal year ends June 30. Plans, however, remain “murky” on where its patients will go after the closing, state Rep. Al Riley (D-Hazel Crest) said.

“When it was announced, they never gave the community and local folks a chance to have their say. This will be a formal hearing for them,” said Riley, who serves on the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.

The commission in December voted to keep open the Tinley Park Mental Health Center. Quinn said the closure of Tinley Park along with a developmental center in downstate Jacksonville were needed to cut costs.

Riley said he hasn’t been told where the current patients will go for care, and that bothers him.

“You’re talking about public dollars and public policy, yet when asked direct questions by me about which health care institutions are going to participate in taking some of these patients, a person who works for a state agency said they weren’t at liberty to say who they are,” Riley said. “That makes no sense at all. The fact of the matter is nothing has been done, and that makes people skeptical.”

The state is working with private agencies and hospitals to provide space for patients, said Brie Callahan, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office.

The state human services department, which runs the Tinley Park center, is having discussions with several hospitals about their taking patients from the center, department spokeswoman Januari Smith said.

She said Loretto Hospital, Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital and St. Bernard’s Hospital, all in Chicago, are in talks with the state as are Riverside Hospital in Kankakee, Provena St. Joseph in Joliet and St. Mary’s in Kankakee.

Callahan said the state should have a list of some care options for Tinley Park patients by the time a hearing is held. The Jacksonville hearing is set for March 7, she said.

“I don’t feel they’ll schedule Tinley Park ahead of that, so that’s another month of working out these relationships,” she said.