Vaccination Clinic Opening At Loretto Hospital — But City Will Manage It After Hospital's Scandals

CHICAGO — A city-managed vaccination clinic is opening next week at Loretto Hospital, the West Side clinic that vaccinated ineligible people with ties to hospital executives.

The city quietly announced the clinic in a Friday afternoon news release.

The clinic will be onsite at Loretto and will exclusively serve Austin residents. It will open Wednesday, with shots administered noon-6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays.

The city will manage all operations at the clinic to start with, including providing the registration and scheduling system and ensuring vaccines are appropriately administered and reported to the state’s tracking system, according to the health department.

Loretto will provide the staff to administer the vaccine and will work with community groups to set up appointments for Austin residents, according to the health department.

The city stopped sending vaccine doses to Loretto after reports from Block Club and WBEZ highlighted how the hospital vaccinated ineligible people with ties to its executives — including Trump Tower workers, people at a luxury Gold Coast watch shop, workers at a Gold Coast steakhouse and more than 200 people at the CEO’s suburban church.

A doctor tied to Loretto also vaccinated his family in the suburbs with doses from the West Side hospital.

Rep. LaShawn Ford resigned from the hospital’s board after it refused to say how it would punish CEO George Miller and then-COO Dr. Anosh Ahmed. Ahmed resigned from the board after Block Club revealed more scandals.

“Loretto has acknowledged there were problems with their previous vaccination efforts and apologized for their mistakes,” Dr. Allison Arwady, head of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said in a news release. “After reviewing the full accounting of past vaccine administered, and after multiple productive discussions with the team at Loretto about our expectations, we are ready to work in partnership with them to help get vaccine to a community that needs it.”

The hospital conducted an internal audit. That audit has been reviewed by the city, and officials have also interviewed the hospital’s leaders, according to the health department.

The clinic’s vaccinations will be free and will be available to all Austin residents 18 and older. People will need to provide proof of address to get the shots.

Eligible people can sign up online or call 312-746-4835 to make an appointment.

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