County health chief: Fly illegals back home
Says Oak Forest patients won't be evicted Sept. 1

March 25, 2007
BY GREGG SHERRARD BLESCH Daily Southtown
Dr. Robert Simon, chief of Cook County health services, says the county should fly illegal immigrants living at Oak Forest Hospital back to the countries they came from.
"We're giving luxury service in a setting like a park," Simon said in an interview Friday, referring to the acres of grass and trees on the sprawling campus. "We've got undocumented aliens that are living there like that."

Simon was disputing that the county plans to evict about 220 patients by Sept. 1 -- as the patients were told Friday. But he defended his opinion that most of them should be living elsewhere, instead of at the county's expense.

The hospital is home to 20 to 30 illegal immigrants who are profoundly disabled, Horacio Esparza of the Progress Center for Independent Living estimated.

Esparza, director of the group's south satellite office, has been working with Oak Forest patients whose immigration status could make it extremely difficult for them to find care if they have to leave.

"I think that was just an answer that came through his mouth without analyzing how that was going to happen," Esparza said when told Simon offered to repatriate them.

"This isn't just transportation," Esparza said. "There's services. There's medical issues. They are from rural areas in their countries. There's no accessibility, no medical treatments. That's totally not acceptable."

The hospital's long-term residents have feared for two months now that they might be asked to leave as a consequence of the county's $500 million deficit.

Sylvia Edwards, the hospital's chief operating officer, sought to end the rumors and speculation in a meeting with most of the residents Friday.

Hospital spokeswoman Annette Carney said they were told, "Sept. 1 is really the date that long-term care is slated to end" at the hospital.

But Simon says that's not true -- at least not yet.

It will be true, he said, if the county can't reduce the number of nursing home beds to 70.

"The only thing we agreed on is, by Sept. 1, we would reduce the size to 70," Simon said. "There is a possibility that the federal government will not allow us to transfer the patients out unless the patients agree."


Costs taxpayers '$800 a day'
And getting them to agree might be a stretch, he said.
The county does not receive any state or federal reimbursement for patients who are not citizens or legal residents.

"What I'm saying is, our primary concern has to be to the taxpayers and the citizens," Simon said.

"There are people that have been there for 10, 20 years," Simon said. "You as a citizen are paying for that at $800 a day."

When asked about Simon's contradictory version, spokeswoman Carney said a letter of intent has been drafted but not sent.

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