From the Naperville Talk column on page 2 of the Friday, October 16 edition of The Naperville Sun, written by reporter Susan Frick Carlman:
The day my son's two tiny fingertips were pinched off in a slammed door, I was really glad to have a hospital nearby.
We lived in Hinsdale back then, just a few blocks from the place where all four of our kids came into the world. That panic-stricken car ride (I was so freaked out, I forgot to buckle up Sam's 3-year-old sister, I later realized) was not to be soon forgotten. Nor was my oddly calm utterance on walking into Hinsdale Hospital's emergency department with the screaming 14-month-old wrapped firmly in my arms: "I have this baby's fingertips in my pocket."
Gruesome, to be sure. Fortunately, Sam's digits today work fine. They don't precisely match the ones on his other hand, but things certainly could have come out worse.
Worse outcomes aren't anything we want in a hospital, so it was good news this week when several of the ones closest to here were honored for such important services as cardiac and stroke care. In addition to Edward Hospital, others recognized for various specialties included Advocate Good Samaritan in Downers Grove, Central DuPage in Winfield, Delnor Community Hospital in Geneva, Provena Mercy in Aurora, and Provena St. Joseph and Silver Cross hospitals in Joliet.
Edward's kudos were for cardiac services, coronary intervention and stroke care.
"It's been sort of the focus of the place in cardiology that we were going to do everything we could to deliver the best cardiac care possible," Edward's cardiac catheterization lab chief Mark Goodwin told me.
I'd say they've done pretty well so far. And that does a heart good.
It's unfortunate, though -- not to mention aggravating and on some days infuriating -- that Edward's earnest attempts to put up a hospital in Plainfield have gotten nowhere. I live in Plainfield. This ticks me off.
Yes, the emergency clinic on Edward's land northwest of 127th Street and Van Dyke Road opened a month ago. That's comforting to anyone who has kids with fingers, and everybody else who dwells nearby, I'd guess. But the town, which has grown well in excess of tenfold since we moved over here in 1988, needs a whole hospital.
Edward has been working on it pretty hard since 2003. The state's seriously flawed Health Facilities Planning Board (is it just me, or did it also occur to you that there are a few parallels between that under-reinvention group and the apparently goofy International Olympic Committee?) has turned the plan down three times. Luckily, Edward hasn't called itself out after that third strike.
The hospital turned in a letter of intent and will give it another go. With the board scheduled to grow from five to nine members March 1, I like to suppose there's hope.
The region may be feeling the effects of a flaccid economy, but the little village that lies just south of Naperville isn't so little anymore. Its citizens -- OK, we -- deserve the security, safety, peace of mind and quality of life that come when a top-quality medical facility moves into town.
It's time.
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