'It just feels wonderful': 170-Year-Old South Side hospital has a new name, still focused on community
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Mercy Hospital opened in 1852, and has healed generations of Chicagoans, before it hit hard times
In fact, it came very close to shutting down, before community activists held demonstrations, demanding it stay open. Today, the South Side hospital has a new name, and it appears, a much brighter future. CBS 2's Jim Williams has the story of the old medical facility with the new lease on life for the community.
Doctor Anita Goyle and the emergency room she leads are much busier these days, and she's very happy about that.
"It has taken a long time, a lot of work to get up to where we are, but it feel wonderful to have the hospital open, sustained, to have the emergency department up and running. It just feels wonderful to be here," Goyle said.
Here, at what is now called Insight Hospital and Medical Center. For nearly 170 years, we knew it as Mercy Hospital.
From its old pre-Civil War building to the large white structure on South Michigan Avenue, the hospital was a community staple, in Bronzeville and beyond.
"Everybody that I have come across has a story about this hospital. You'll never go from one side of the country to the other without meeting somebody that has had some degree of touch with Mercy Hospital," Goyle said.
Doctor Dillon Bannis is the chief medical officer.
"You can't walk to the grocery store without somebody stopping you and saying 'you delivered my baby.' That sticks with people and it becomes something that is very important to their life, to their life's story and also to their families," Bannis said.
But in recent years, Mercy Hospital faced enormous financial difficulties and appeared on the brink of shutting down.
Activists fought to save it a decade after nearby Michael Reese Hospital closed in this predominately African American community.
A fight waged at a time of America's racial reckoning and the pandemic which has ravaged the Black community.
"So, living in this community, and having yet another institution close, was heartbreaking to everybody."
In June of last year, Insight assumed control of the hospital. Now, for the first time in nearly a year, the hospital can once again accept ambulances. This after getting authorization from the Illinois Department of Public Health. Other medical services have resumed as well.
"We can do neurosurgery, procedures here, surgeries, see patients with very critical diagnoses that we weren't able to see a year ago," Goyle said.
An old hospital has a new name and new life on Chicago's South Side.
"My hopes are that Insight Chicago becomes a cornerstone of the community's once again. The institution, although it changed its name, the work ethic and the passion hasn't changed," Bannis said.
The hospital is planning a community celebration on Monday, March 7, at 10:00 a.m.
