Sunday, August 27, 2006

Providence at Provident

For those of you who read my blog who aren’t related to me (that might just be you Mike Doyle), I haven’t posted because my wife just gave birth to our second daughter Anastasia Patricia on August 15th. I’m not so into the networld that I had to do an immediate post to show the world our beautiful little girl, I did it by phone and e-mail. And no, I’m not such an exhibitionist that I have to post pictures of her, either.

But I do want to give much love and respect to the staff of Provident Hospital of Cook County. Because of the University of Chicago Hospital’s decision not to take our form of insurance, we stumbled upon Provident in the hopes of merely getting a pregnancy test to qualify for Illinois’ All-Kids Program of mother-child health insurance. Turns out that Provident is one of the few hospitals in Chicagoland to offer nurse-midwives in their maternity unit. That, plus the friendly staff’s assurance that we would not have to pay out of pocket to deliver our child made Provident the obvious choice.

Provident is a public, Cook County Bureau of Health Services system hospital. Sarah and Anastasia were quite possibly the only white patients. The physical plant of the hospital is not state of the art and the cafeteria is not gourmet. It is clearly an underfunded and overburdened health care institution. With all that being true, we could not have asked for a better experience. The midwives were extremely competent and caring. The nurses were excellent. The support staff, such as the security staff, dietary services staff and just about everyone we ran into throughout the corridors of the hospital combined competence and exemplary customer service skills. I left Provident feeling extremely blessed by a group of people dedicated to providing top-notch service in a challenging environment.

As we near the Cook County Board election and budget battles, I want as many people to know as possible that the money (not) lavished on Provident is money well spent.

Peace

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Congrats to you and you wife! Glad to hear such nice news. That was a great post about Provident. I pass it all the time and wondered what the level of care was like. UC doesn't take our insurance either (I have no idea what insurance it DOES take -- it must be the most expensive hospital in the city), so we're on the look out for a provider. Always good to read about the options on the south side.

Congrats again.