Silver Cross in the News
State board OKs Silver Cross move The Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board today approved Silver Cross Hospital officials' plan to move the campus three miles east to New Lenox. The board also approved plans for an Advocate Christ Medical Center facility in Lockport. The Lockport City Council earlier approved the 30,000-square-foot facility at 159th Street and Farrell Road that will be part of a 55,000-square-foot Advocate building. The medical facility will include primary care services; an imaging center with CT scanner, mammography and magnetic resonance imaging machine; a rehabilitation center; a sleep center; and a center for the treatment of patients with chronic pain disorders. Silver Cross proposes to build a $398 million hospital along Interstate 355. Silver Cross made its relocation plan public in late July 2007, and the plan quickly became a hot issue in Joliet. Silver Cross wants to build a more modern hospital, while leaving at least an urgent care center on the Joliet property and opening up that site for other development. Joliet officials have opposed the plan, contending that Silver Cross was abandoning a low-income neighborhood to attract more affluent customers who would have private medical insurance. Two public hearings were held in Joliet and New Lenox on the hospital's proposed move, and supporters and opponents packed those sessions. But those hearings barely got a mention in a report to the health facilities planning board by its staff. Joliet sent a letter to the state board, contending the report should have given more attention to issues raised at the hearings. 
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