Chicago ambulance service resumes at Provident Hospital after 11 years without it

CHICAGO - A Chicago hospital is resuming critical ambulance service on the South Side after more than a decade of residents traveling miles for emergency medical care.

Provident Hospital in Bronzeville will begin accepting ambulances on Wednesday, 11 years after the hospital stopped taking them due to budget cuts.

Provident's emergency room never closed, but it only accepted walk-in patients. It took a more than five-million-dollar investment to get Provident's ER back to the point where it could take ambulances again.

"When your loved one is experiencing a massive heart attack, they deserve to receive treatment within – not outside the community," said Cook County Commissioner Bill Lowry. "When your loved one is going into labor while in the community, they deserve to give birth within – not outside the community."

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Provident's ER sees about 19,000 patients a year. The hospital expects that number to grow by a few thousand when ambulance services resume this week.

Provident Hospital was founded in 1893, as the first African American owned and operated hospital in America.