HYDE PARK — In a reversal of its long-standing position, the University of Chicago announced Thursday it would open an adult trauma center on its Hyde Park campus, and said it was shelving a more recent plan to partner with Mount Sinai to open a center at Holy Cross Hospital.
The change marks a victory for nearby residents who for years have pleaded for an adult trauma center at the University of Chicago. For decades, severely injured South Siders — including gunshot victims — have been taken to trauma centers miles away, including Downtown and in southwest suburban Oak Lawn.
The university for years had resisted opening an adult trauma center on its campus. But protests continued, and in the fall, U. of C. said it would join a $40 million partnership with Mount Sinai to open a trauma center at Holy Cross. That changed Thursday, when it announced plans to open a trauma center itself.
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Whether the university will construct a new building for the trauma center and a planned new emergency room still is being discussed, according to Lorna Wong, a spokeswoman for U. of C. Medicine.
“From the very beginning, what has mattered most is making sure that patients have access to the highest level of trauma care where the needs are great,” said Karen Teitelbaum, president and CEO of Sinai Health System in a prepared statement. “Ultimately, we are gratified that trauma care will be restored in an area of Chicago that is in urgent need of these services."
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Teitelbaum pledged Sinai's expertise as the university now develops its own center.
“We recognize Sinai’s experience and excellence in trauma care," said Sharon O’Keefe, president of U. of C. Medicine, in a prepared statement. "At the end of the day, we realized that integrating all of these services on one site, on our campus, made the most sense for South Side patients.”
It will take two years or more to build the center, according to the school's chairman of surgery, Dr. Jeffrey Matthews.
The university said in the announcement that it has experienced unprecedented growth in its inpatient admissions and is now in serious need of more beds to accommodate patients, about half of whom come from the South Side.
The university said it would invest in new facilities to accommodate the trauma center and a new emergency room integrated with the university's Burn and Complex Wound Center.
The university already operates a trauma center for children, where the most serious injuries like gunshot wounds and injuries from car crashes are treated.
Wong said the details of the expanded facilities would be worked out with the Illinois Department of Health, which must approve the trauma center, emergency room and new inpatient beds before they can be used.
For years, protesters have demanded the university open the first trauma center on the South Side.
Those who pushed for the facility for years said they were stunned by Thursday's news.
"This is a shock to my system right now," said Veronica Morris Moore, an organizer with Fearless Leadership by the Youth, the lead group that has pressed the university on trauma care.
She said the group was still deciding how to take the news, but she said she personally was thrilled.
"It's been a long five years and I was prepared to do another five years," Moore said.
Protests were sparked in 2010, when 18-year-old Damian Turner, of Woodlawn, was shot in the heart and then died during the 11-minute ambulance ride to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, one of six trauma centers serving the city.
With no trauma center to serve most of the South Side, most South Side patients are rushed to Northwestern Downtown, Mount Sinai in North Lawndale, Cook County's John Stroger Hospital on the Near West Side or Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
With the majority of shootings in the city happening on the South Side, debate has raged for years on whether the increased distance to care was affecting the outcomes for the South Side's most seriously injured patients.
City leaders were quick to praise the university for taking on the issue of trauma care on its Hyde Park campus.
“I applaud the University of Chicago’s plan to strengthen access to the care the community needs most,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “Having access to a Level 1 adult trauma center, alongside increased access to emergency and specialty care, will strengthen our entire network of care on the South Side.”
The university has discussed the need for a new emergency room for more than a year, it and even submitted plans to the state for a new ER in December 2014. The university pulled back on those plans a month later, saying at the time that it needed more time to figure out the exact needs of its patients.
Wong could not immediately say whether the new emergency room plans would mimic the previous plan, which called for the current ER to be closed and converted to office space.
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