Please allow me to clarify several points made in your “Clinical Depression” article of August 24.
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First, you reported that the Chicago Department of Public Health’s move away from public medicine and toward public health represents a “new vision” that sprang up when Dr. John Wilhelm was appointed health commissioner in December. Actually, the department has been following that pattern fairly consistently since about 1991 (which nearly coincides with the Cook County Bureau of Health Services’ major expansion of public-medicine clinics in the city). During the 1990s, a number of city clinic operations were assumed and by many measures improved by hospitals and other providers. Those clinics are still serving Chicagoans in a diverse mix of neighborhoods that includes Lakeview, Austin, North Park Village, Near South Side, Near West Side, Oakland, and more. For us to continue that pattern in South Lawndale and other neighborhoods should not be the surprise that some seem to view it as.
Finally, we welcome the continued input of health-care advocates in South Lawndale and other neighborhoods. Their ideas, their enthusiasm, and their knowledge of local situations can, when employed in a constructive manner, be of great value to the communities they serve. We count on them as partners in helping us ensure that Chicago’s health-care providers are serving all people, regardless of immigration status or ability to pay.
Nearly everyone I talked to for background on this story–which included nurses and other health-care workers as well as public and private clinic administrators–had the same impression: that Dr. Wilhelm’s appointment as health commissioner has brought a much more notable push by the city to get out of the business of providing direct health-care services. Several did mention that Wilhelm’s predecessor, Sister Sheila Lyne, talked about closing the clinics when she was first appointed in 1991, but they felt that over time she pulled away from the idea.
