Over the last week the hospital news has been flying fast and furrious! I am going to try to bring you up to speed on the developments and then talk about how this affects us.- First Condell rejected an offer by Lake Forrest to buy Condell. This was big news right up until two days ago when Condell rejected the overture.
- Then yesterday Advocate announced that they and Condell had agreed on a letter of intent for Advocate to merge with Condell.
They have consistently reiterated there desire to me and the village's senior staff to build the hospital. I beleive them! Advocate's actions are consistent with this premise. They are applying to build a large out patient service center on the site at 120 and Wilson, which will likely be granted and Advocate anticipates breaking ground this summer as a precursor to the likely fall approval of the Hospital (fingers crossed).
Internally at the village Advocate's words match the actions, since we are seeing an urgency for the building process and in fact we have a public hearing for this portion of the hospital process scheduled for early March in front of the Illinois Hospital Facility Board.
While candidly the merger worries me, one central point remains, the need for service in western Lake County and eastern McHenry counties is growing. If Condell has approached us to build a hospital way back when we would have said that makes total sense! So the ownership issue of the Libertyville Condell campus really should not and I hope will not jeopardize the push to build a hospital here in Round Lake.
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