UIC to Close Pilsen Health Clinic in June

By Anthonia Akitunde in News on Apr 25, 2009 6:15PM

The University of Illinois-Chicago’s cites Illinois’ budget crisis and a lack of Medicare reimbursements for closing a Pilsen medical center this June.

Patients, medical students, and advocacy group Pilsen Alliance are fighting the planned closure of the Center for Women and Families at Pilsen, which stands to affect thousands of health-care seeking individuals in the area. Opponents held a rally this week and submitted a petition with more than 1,000 signatures protesting the pending closure.

The center serves more than 6,500 of the area’s mainly Spanish-speaking, low-income families annually. Focusing largely on women’s care, the center also provided primary health care.

According to Chi-Town Daily News report, the center is a causality of UIC’s attempts to trim five percent of its budget, around $25 million, to address the state’s budget crisis. In the five years the center has been open, UIC says it has cost them $200,000 annually, but opponents of the closing said the center only represented .0001 percent of the university’s $4.2 billion yearly budget.

Medical students said they felt the closure kept them from learning what it is like to work in similar environments and went against the school’s mission statement, “to train professionals in a wide range of public service disciplines, serving Illinois as the principal educator of health science professionals and as a major healthcare provider to underserved communities.”

Patients have been alerted to the center’s closing, which is slated for June 30. [Chi-Town Daily News, Gapers Block]