Local hospital sold to OSF

By: Michelle Anstett
Editor-in-chief

The City of Monmouth’s own Community Medical Center (CMC), located at 1000 W. Harlem Ave., was recently sold to the Order of Saint Francis (OSF), which owns several small hospitals in the area.

This sale is just part of CMC’s evolution in the last several years. CMC began as a city-owned hospital which began to falter. The city attempted to sell the hospital, but instead let it become a not-for-profit hospital. With this change came a new administrator and some risk-taking which improved the hospital and its stance in the community.

In the last few years, however, the hospital “thought they have taken it about as far as it could go without some outside help,” said Don Gladfelter, Monmouth College vice president for finance and business and CMC board member.

The board talked with several other hospitals and entertained proposals, and “OSF just seemed like the best fit” for Monmouth, Gladfelter stated.

While there will most likely be some major changes with regards to the acquisition of new equipment and the potential range of services offered, Gladfelter does not believe the philosophy and community atmosphere will change significantly.

The current employees of CMC will become employees of OSF, so members of the Monmouth community will not lose their jobs. CMC’s current board will become the new hospital’s advisory board, allowing it to maintain its pulse on the needs of the local community.

OSF, he continued, also has “unbelievable buying power,” which will help contribute to potential upgrades. In addition, the “infusion of capital from OSF” will assist with “enhanced services’ availability here in town,” he predicts, which may allow the local hospital to offer a wider range of services so people will not have to always transfer to other facilities for treatment.

Gladfelter equated the process of selecting a buyer who would not “just shut it [the hospital] down” to the town movie theater of several years past. The movie theater located in town was purchased by a company, only to be closed soon thereafter, leaving those who live in Monmouth with only the option of driving to Galesburg to view a newly-released film. OSF, he said, will maintain the hospital in town for as long as possible, allowing Monmouth residents the option of visiting it for their health care needs instead of driving to Galesburg.

The college’s relationship with the new hospital may change, also, as new management always brings new opportunities. Gladfelter believes the change may bring “efforts to do some greater marketing to college students” in an attempt to draw more of the campus population to the hospital for visits while away from home.

While there are a lot of big plans for the hospital, including the creation of a foundation to promote health care in the area, nothing can be truly finalized until the sale is approved by a state agency at its meeting later this month. Once the sale is approved, it will be finalized by the two hospitals around April 11.