CHICAGO () — The owner of Weiss Memorial Hospital has been given additional time by a state health facilities board to address a series of unresolved problems before Illinois moves to permanently revoke the hospital’s license. The decision comes even though the Uptown facility has been closed for nearly a year, remains out of compliance with state and federal regulators, and still owes Illinois taxpayers millions of dollars.
Weiss Memorial Hospital, once a key source of medical care for thousands of North Side residents regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay, has been empty since last August.
The hospital’s owner, Resilience Healthcare, has also faced mounting scrutiny elsewhere. Earlier this year, the company was forced to close West Suburban Medical Center, another safety-net hospital. That shutdown triggered a state inquiry into millions of dollars in public funding and set off a lengthy court fight over the future of both medical centers.
At a Tuesday meeting of the Illinois Health Facilities and Services Review Board, Resilience Healthcare CEO Manoj Prasad confronted the prospect of losing Weiss Memorial Hospital’s operating license. Instead, board members gave him six more months to resolve a long list of compliance issues and financial obligations that remain outstanding.
The crisis at Weiss Memorial Hospital intensified on June 18, 2025, during a severe Chicago heat wave, when the facility’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning system failed. Temperatures in parts of the emergency department climbed into the 90s.
State regulators said the infrastructure breakdown forced hospital management to evacuate all inpatients and transfer them to other healthcare facilities.
Prasad blamed the HVAC failure on decisions made under prior ownership and said at the time that Weiss Memorial could reopen within weeks.
“Many of our previous owners have sort of decided to kick the can down the road, and we, a lot of the upgrades that should have happened with the HVAC system unfortunately did not happen,” Prasad said during a June 18, 2025, news conference. “They’ve ordered the parts and as soon as that arrives… It’s a guess-timate at this point, but we’re looking at a couple of weeks.”
But in the months that followed, more problems would hit the hospital.
State and federal regulators investigated the evacuation and facility conditions, finding several critical compliance issues, including nursing and emergency staffing, as well as problems with the building itself.
On Aug. 8, 2025, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services revoked the hospital’s reimbursement agreement, cutting off most of the facility’s revenue. Weiss locked its front doors and terminated all remaining care, including shutting down its emergency department, and state regulators issued a temporary suspension of its operating license.
On Tuesday, Joseph Hylak-Reinholtz, an attorney representing Resilience Healthcare, told the state review board Resilience Healthcare is appealing that CMS revocation, as well as state regulators who are seeking to recoup more than $27 million in unpaid taxes and fees.
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“We want to see what happens in both of these matters before making a decision on Weiss,” Hylak-Reinholtz said, with Prasad sitting beside him.
According to the review board’s staff report, board members could have approved a temporary extension with “conditions to ensure accountability.” But after eight affirmative votes, the board granted the extension with no such conditions.
The “temporary license suspension” for Weiss Memorial Hospital is now in effect through Feb. 8, 2027.
It’s a short-term victory for Prasad, who is currently in a protracted legal battle over his own future at Resilience Healthcare.
As the I-Team previously reported, between Weiss and West Suburban Medical Center, Resilience Healthcare owes taxpayers at least $104.8 million in unpaid taxes, fees and advanced loans issued by the state for repairs.
Prasad himself is in negotiations with his business partner and both facilities’ landlord, Rathnaker Patlola. At one point, those discussions included the possibility of Prasad exiting Resilience entirely. But negotiations are still ongoing.
Until that is settled, the future of both safety net hospitals, which served thousands of people a year and employed hundreds of staff, is unknown.
