Advocate Health Care Responds to Multi-Year Health Equity Campaign:
SEIU Healthcare Frontline Workers’ Advocacy Paved Way for Trinity Investment 

CHICAGO—Frontline hospital workers with SEIU Healthcare Illinois were gratified this morning to learn of Advocate Health Care’s plans to invest a billion dollars over 10 years in Chicago’s South Side, following the union’s multi-year campaign calling upon Advocate and other well-resourced health care systems in the city to address the racial life expectancy gap in the city by investing in the chronically under-resourced and underserved South and West Sides.  

“For too long, Advocate has focused its new investments in communities where there’s an opportunity to increase profitability with upper middle-class populations with good health insurance, like Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington,” said Greg Kelley, President of SEIU Healthcare Illinois. “For years now, our members have been taking time away from work and their families to speak out every time there’s a state hearing where Advocate’s looking to invest money in places that already have healthcare access—and they’ve been doing that because people in the South and West Sides have been literally dying for lack of healthcare. The announcement today shows we’ve gotten Advocate’s attention.” 

SEIU Healthcare members spoke out in the summer of 2022 about Advocate’s mega-merger with Atrium Health due to concerns that out-of-state ownership might further reduce service access at Advocate’s less profitable South Side and South Suburban facilities—citing recent maternal health closures at three Advocate hospitals as a troubling trend that could be accelerated by the merger.  

Health worker advocacy also included SEIU members speaking out this past summer when Advocate was seeking permission to invest $26 million to improve Good Shepherd Hospital in the suburb of Barrington, an area with a median income of over $140K and where life expectancy is 82.2 years. As the union pointed out in a July 10 letter to the Illinois Health Facilities & Services Review Board, Advocate’s investment was more desperately needed at Trinity Hospital, serving an area with less than half the median income of Barrington and where life expectancy is only 73.9 years.

In all of their outreach and outspoken advocacy, healthcare workers called upon Advocate to do the right thing—and invest meaningfully in hospitals and outpatient facilities in the South Side, West Side and South Suburbs where the racial life expectancy gap is the highest for the city, as is the maternal mortality rate. 

“Advocate’s billion-dollar plan to rebuild Trinity Hospital and open ten outpatient health centers in the area is a significant first investment in the kind of expanded and comprehensive care infrastructure that our members have been calling for. Our members live in these under-served communities, and they know first-hand the consequences in suffering and disability and lives lost that have resulted because of the lack of healthcare access in these areas,” said Kelley. “We are glad that Advocate has started listening to the pleas of workers and community members, and hope that they will continue to listen and invest in the health care infrastructure in the areas where the need is the greatest.” 

SEIU Healthcare members have pledged to continue their advocacy as this project gets underway. 

“It’s crucial that the South Side gets the full range of services required to support the needs of the community,” said Kelley. “That’s why we will be paying attention and advocating for maternal health services, adult and adolescent behavioral health care, and oncology resources appropriate to the level of need.” 

SEIU Healthcare’s campaign to address healthcare inequities in the city has also called upon Northwestern Medicine and other large healthcare systems in the metro area to invest appropriate resources in high-need communities.