Signage outside Javon Bea Hospital Rockton has been covered over. (Photo by Lynne Conner/For Chronicle Media)

Residents on Rockford’s west side are feeling abandoned and betrayed after Javon Bea Hospital permanently closed its doors today on just a few hours’ notice.

While sudden, the closure was not a complete surprise. The 194-bed hospital at 2350 N. Rockton Ave. has been the focus of concern for nearly five years, as hospital system officials made a series of service cuts and moved various functions to its facility on East Riverside Drive.

Mercyhealth Vice President of Operations Kara Sankey released a statement to WREX television, saying that the hospital was seeking a “temporary suspension of services” at the shuttered site.

“We will still maintain many clinical and administrative services on that campus,” Sankey said. “Mercyhealth understands the value of the Rockton Avenue Campus location and recognizes the importance of keeping services for our community.”

However, Sankey made it clear Mercyhealth does not intend to reopen the site as a hospital, saying, “We are actively looking for a developer that will utilize the hospital building for the benefit of the community. Among the potential uses we envision for the building include locations for social service agencies or a senior living facility.”

She said no employees have been laid off, and that the adjacent Mercyhealth Physician Clinic–Rockton, at 2350 N. Rockton Ave., will remain open.

“For the long term, we will continue to have over 500 employees in our physician clinic at the Rockton Campus. This building will house a number of clinical and administrative services,” Sankey said.

The hospital was formerly known as Rockford Memorial. It had provided women’s and children’s medical services, intensive care for all ages and was the area’s only Level 1 trauma center. It was also a Level III Regional Perinatal Center for the northern Illinois region, including Rockford and the surrounding area.

When Chronicle Media walked about the hospital grounds Tuesday, there were several large moving trucks by the north entrance of the building. Signs of significant disrepair inside the hospital were evident through several windows and doors.

A Dumpster with office furniture sits behind Javon Bea Hospital Rockton (Photo by Lynn Conner/ For Chronicle Media)

There were six Dumpsters present. The ones in the back of the building contained mostly old office furniture and metal office cubicle pieces. One Dumpster contained a large pile of paper documents, including security reports that contained personal information, as well as an old appointment book and other files.

There have been growing concerns among west side residents and city officials regarding the future of the facility for at least four years. In 2022, Mercyhealth downgraded its emergency room to “standby” status.

The hospital said in a press release at the time that it did not have the staffing or finances to maintain two emergency trauma centers in Rockford.

That left the nearest emergency care in the west side area at UW Swedish American Hospital, more than three miles away. The closest Mercyhealth facility is nine miles east on East Riverside Drive on the city’s east side.

The emergency-room downgrading led Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara to call out hospital CEO Javon Bea personally, accusing him of “disrespect(ing) the residents of the west side.”

“I think each and every resident of our community could see this day coming from the moment Mr. Bea came into town,” McNamara said at the time. “As Mercyhealth CEO, he has disrespected the residents of the west side and systematically reduced services to fit his agenda from day one.”

Bea, McNamara said, “keeps saying he is investing in the west side, while he continues to cut critical services to some of the residents most in need.”

In September, the hospital confirmed that it would further consolidate services within its system, including moving radiology and oncology services to the Riverside hospital more than nine miles east. That led to a renewed round of concerns voiced by west side residents.

In a 2022 public hearing, Bea blamed the reductions in services at the Rockton Avenue facility on major flooding in 2018 that left hospital officials dealing with “waist-high water.”

Bea said he called on the city at the time to spend $6.5 million on the construction of a box culvert to mitigate flooding, but that no steps were taken to counteract the flooding risks.

For some, the Tuesday announcement was just the coup de grace after a long and disheartening process.

“It is a sad day for me personally, but most of all, a sad day for all the west siders who now have no close access to a hospital,” said Rockford native Jim Andrews. “At a time that we’re seeing reinvestment in the west side of Rockford, especially in the form of homes now regularly rising above the $200,000 average price on this side of town, this dis-investment in this side of Rockford is disheartening, and feels like a betrayal.”

Andrews said closing the Rockton Avenue hospital was not something Mercyhealth officials had previously acknowledged was a possibility.

“The Rockford community was led to believe that the hospital would remain in operation for 10 more years, with key services offered at this site,” he said.

Former 9th Ward Alderman Bill Rose said that Mercyhealth was putting profit over the needs of Rockford’s citizens.

“It’s unfortunate that our current hospital environment within the state and nationwide is becoming a for-profit venture, where hospital systems prioritize how they will pay their CEOs over their patients and the communities they are meant to serve,” Rose said.

Former Rockford resident Lisa Clark said residents depended on the former Rockford Memorial Hospital.

“RMH was known for its exemplary care, dedicated staff and doctors that generations of families continued to use. Many doctors took care of their patients’ children and grandchildren over the years. People were dedicated to the mission of RMH, and it was not just a hospital serving the Rockford community, but a community serving a hospital.”

Lynne Conner contributed reporting to this article