My Advocate Testimony Yesterday!

Yesterday was a big day, the state board that will decide on a certificate of need for Advocate Healthcare's proposed hospital was in town taking testimony on the why Round Lake will be a great site for the hospital!

There is some nice coverage from the Daily Herald, News Sun and the Round Lake Journal in the papers.

While all the experts and health care providers were debating the merits of which hospital should be built, the real world intruded and this is what happened. There was an accident in Grayslake, and there was an accident in Fox Lake as well and there was someone airlifted to Advocate Lutheran General from Grayslake. Kind of ironic, especially since this type of traffic issue, was going on all day, I would hope the persons transported by ambulance were okay in Lake County Traffic.

Along with a host of others, I testified. What follows below is a transcript of my testimony that I will give yesterday at the Round Lake Beach Civic Center.

My name is Bill Gentes and I serve as the Mayor of Round Lake.

Round Lake is proud to be the potential home of Advocate’s proposed hospital. Our residents are united as one towards achieving this goal.

Last year in a speech to the Round Lake Chamber of Commerce, I made a loud call for a hospital in western Lake County. I appointed a citizen-driven Hospital Task Force to identify and address the needs of our surrounding communities and attempt to attract a hospital to our region.

What this Task Force found was no surprise. There was an urgent need—not just from Round Lake—but from concerned citizens of the Round Lake area and well beyond—that they will not take their health needs lightly.

I stand today in support of Advocate with my fellow mayors from Fox Lake,
Hainesville, Lake Zurich, Old Mill Creek, Round Lake Beach, Round Lake Heights, Round Lake Park, Island Lake, Third Lake, Volo and Wauconda, who like me, recognize the significant lack of health care within reasonable reach of our communities. Each Village submitted a formal resolution to the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board stating this need.

We also recognize the lack of nearby healthcare will only get worse as each of our communities continues to grow. These communities currently represent over 130,000 people and that does not include the nearly 30,000 who live in unincorporated areas adjacent to these communities.

Western Lake County and Eastern McHenry County struggle with a significant lack of transportation infrastructure. Getting to a hospital is hard and getting harder. This village is pushing big projects that will solve big problems, the Route 120 bypass - is one of them - which will end on Round Lake’s and Advocates front door step and will give Lake and McHenry County desperately needed traffic relief, and make access to a Advocate’s Lake County Hospital easy from all compass points via Route 120, Route 60, and US Route 12

I am thrilled that Advocate wants to make this substantial investment in my community. The economic impact of a new hospital is significant: it means more jobs, supply and equipment purchases, construction work and support to local business.

Let me be clear what this hospital can and will do for this region. Coupled with Baxter Healthcare’s adjacent technology campus, which employees 2,300 people, we would be creating one of the largest clusters of healthcare jobs in the Chicagoland area. Over 1,000 directly related new jobs will be created in the surrounding communities.

It’s easy to see that a hospital will provide jobs and health security to our neighbors, but building an Advocate hospital means much more – commitment to our communities. Advocate hospitals have been serving Chicagoland for over 100 years, and I am confident they are here to stay for the next 100 years. Why am I confident? Because as a not for profit system, Advocate is a mission driven organization dedicated to serving communities.

We all know that there is a for-profit provider touting a competitive hospital proposal that will offer property tax benefit. In my opinion, all that Advocate brings in community benefit and charity care far outweighs any property tax contribution we could imagine. In fact, the Advocate system dedicates roughly a quarter-billion dollars or so annually in community programs and services throughout Chicago and the suburbs.

The Village of Round Lake supports Advocate Health Care’s plans to build a hospital in western Lake County.

I respectfully ask the Illinois Health Facilities Board to do the same. Thank you.