More than 200 long term care patients in the Oak Forest Hospital in Chicago recently received letters announcing that they would be turned out. The evictions are set to begin May 1.
Cook County Board president Todd Stroger is slashing the budget of the Bureau of Health Services, the agency that
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Overall, the cuts have taken the jobs of almost 200 nurses and other health care providers. A total of 1,200 jobs have been cut countywide.
The budget cuts are racist. They will impact primarily Black and Latino communities. One of the harder hit areas will be the ambulatory and community health network, which provides outpatient care to over 800,000 people at 26 facilities throughout the county in poor neighborhoods.
Twelve health clinics, including the only seven located in schools, have been cut.
The Cook County Bureau of Health Services serves about half of Chicago’s African American community and about one-third of its Latino community. Sandra Webb-Booker, RN, PhD told Nurse.com: “This is going to really hit the African American and Latino communities. Those of us who are minorities are going to suffer some more.”
Half of the health clinics on the south side of Chicago have been closed.
Other “non-essential services” have been cut from some hospitals including OB/GYN units. Margaret Davis RN, MSN, FNP, speaking for the Chicago Chapter of the National Black Nurses Association and the executive director of the Healthcare Consortium of Illinois said: “You have patients who may lose their healthcare facilities, but no one is saying when the clinics will go, where patients will go for services, or how they will get their medical records,” she says.
Some of those being kicked out of Oak Forest have been at the facility for over 14 years. They now find themselves on the verge of homelessness. Patients, health care providers and activists protested the evictions on April 6 with a march to Oak Forest Hospital.
The National Nurses Organizing Committee has launched a massive media campaign to stop the cuts. The campaign includes large billboard advertisements placed all over the city.
Money could easily be found to pay for health care for workers in Chicago. For example, money is being wasted on defending and protecting corrupt cops. The city has spent 6 million dollars covering the legal fees of Jon Burge, the former police officer whose division routinely tortured Black arrestees. Burge still receives a $3,400 a month pension from the city.
And Chicago is planning to spend billions on the 2016 Olympics if it is selected as the host city. Mayor Daley and the city’s corporate elite have gone as far as guaranteeing the International Olympic Committee $500 million in taxpayer funds.
Cook County Board president Stroger, architect of the budget cuts, has spent tens of thousands of dollars to publicize the budget cuts.
The nationwide criminal attacks on health care are creating a crisis for workers in many cities and towns. The fight against government budget cuts is central to the class struggle in Chicago and all over the United States.
