Thursday, January 18, 2007
Northwest Indiana Times
by GIANG NYUGEN Medill News Service

While employees rallied outside Oak Forest Hospital on Wednesday to protest the proposed Cook County budget, public defenders charged that cuts to their county department's budget would disproportionately hurt the poor and weaken the county's justice system.
 
"(The plan) is an embarrassment and a disservice to the poor," said Henry Bayer, executive director of Local 3315 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees -- the union representing Cook County's public defenders.
 
Under Stroger's proposed budget, the public defender's office would lose 43 attorneys, three investigators and 25 support staff, union spokesman Anders Lindall said during a news conference at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse.
 
Public defenders already carry caseloads higher than the recommended limit proposed by the American Bar Association, while the cost of resolving a criminal case in Cook County -- at $132 a case -- is one of the lowest in the nation, according to Assistant Public Defender Brendan Max, a union member.
 
"The budget here is already threadbare," he said.
 
The public defender's office is not the only one that may feel a pinch called for in Stroger's budget proposal, which would also eliminate 16 community health care clinics in the county, including the Cottage Grove Health Center in Ford Heights.
 
The proposed $730 million appropriation for the Bureau of Health accounts for more than a quarter (27 percent) of the entire county budget. An additional $82 million in the budget will go to similar health services performed by other departments.
 
At Oak Forest Hospital, doctors, nurses and janitors stood side by side, holding signs and chanting. The rally addressed Stroger's cuts that hospital workers believe will weaken health care for many of the county's poorest residents.
 
Dr. Srinivas Jolepalem, of the hospital's internal medicine division, said south suburban Oak Forest was already overextended and its emergency room already overcrowded. Since opening to the public in 1993, according to Jolepalem, the number of patients visiting the hospital's emergency room quadrupled over the course of several years.
 
The planned elimination of 16 community clinics, and two of the three clinics serving the south suburban area, had hospital staff particularly concerned.
 
"Our emergency room's swamped because people already have trouble getting into the clinics," said Usha Patel, a nurse in her 22nd year at the hospital.
 
Stroger spokesman Steve Mayberry said cleaning up the county's financial situation without increasing taxes was necessary although inevitably difficult.
 
"There's no question that the shared burden of reducing a $500 million shortfall is painful for everyone," he said.
 
County commissioners can amend Stroger's cuts before they approve a final budget, which must be passed by Feb. 28.