from the Chicago Tribune (Link requires registration)

(According to a report released by a union attempting to organize the system)

Chicago’s largest Catholic hospital system acknowledged Wednesday that it has cut charity care for the poor by at least one-third and restricted the areas where it will offer financial assistance to destitute patients.

Resurrection Health Care disclosed the reductions in free care as it came under sharp attack in a new study released Wednesday by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31.

The report said Resurrection Health Care has sharply reduced charity care over the last year and denied financial assistance to people living outside the hospital system’s self-defined core service area.

The union is trying to organize 8,000 workers at Resurrection’s eight hospitals.

Excluded areas encompass African-American and Latino communities on the South and Southwest Sides, including Pilsen, Back of the Yards, Brighton Park and Gage Park, the report alleges.

Resurrection said that it was limiting charity care to communities in “which our patients live.”

Total charity care spending did fall by $7 million, or 32 percent, between 2002 and 2003, the hospital system noted in a statement released late Wednesday. It declined to make executives available for comment.

In contrast to Resurrection, Chicago’s No. 1 hospital group, Advocate Health Care, said it increased spending on charity care to an estimated $45.3 million in 2003, up from $40.6 million in 2002.

…..Explaining reduced levels of free care, Resurrection noted that more patients appear to have qualified for Medicaid and KidsCare, state health programs for the poor, lessening their need for financial assistance.

Also, fewer people probably requested help from Resurrection’s charity care programs, the hospital system noted.

The union charges that the falloff in demand is a result of Resurrection downplaying the availability of charity care funding in an attempt to bolster its finances and limit free services.

The hospital system insists that isn’t so. It runs several “affordable, accessible” outpatient centers where the poor “pay little or nothing” for basic health care and anyone in need of emergency treatment gets it, it said.

AFSCME Council 31 has clashed often with Resurrection management during its organizing drive. Still, its report’s findings are sure to provoke controversy, especially at a time when the number of people who can’t afford health insurance or costly medical bills is soaring.