Kaiser Permanente announced Tuesday it is committing up to $32 million to help expand the emergency department at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Willowbrook, which has been struggling with financial pressures.
The commitment includes a $25 million charitable grant and the purchase and loan of a $7 million modular building that will provide temporary emergency care space while the hospital’s Hope Emergency Center is expanded, according to Kaiser Permanente.
The 131-bed nonprofit hospital opened in 2015 with an emergency department designed with up to 29 treatment bays to accommodate about 25,000 visits annually. The emergency department is now handling about 125,000 visits a year — five times the number it was designed to serve, officials said…