After West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park abruptly closed in late March, the hospital’s partners are now locked in a Cook County courtroom battle over who controls the facility. Resilience Healthcare’s CEO Manoj Prasad accuses the operation’s financial pr
When West Suburban Medical Center abruptly shut its doors in late March, the impact didn’t stay inside the hospital walls. On the West Side and in the near west suburbs, people who relied on one of the area’s safety-net institutions suddenly found themselves lining up elsewhere.
Now, the fight over what happened—and who should run the hospital next—has spilled into Cook County court.
Resilience Healthcare chief executive officer Manoj Prasad and the hospital’s landlord. Rathnakar Reddy Patlola. sued each other last month. turning business partners into legal adversaries. Patlola wants a judge to appoint a receiver. a neutral third party. to wrestle management of the hospital away from Prasad. That request is before Cook County Circuit Judge Patrick Stanton. During a court appearance on Wednesday, Stanton said he hopes to rule by the end of the month.
Prasad had closed the Oak Park institution in late March and furloughed most of its employees. He blamed the hospital’s electronic medical record system, saying it “never functioned correctly,” and tied that failure to payroll issues.
The closures have reshaped the region’s medical landscape in quick succession. Prasad also shut down Weiss Memorial Hospital last summer after it was stripped of Medicare and Medicaid funding.
For Patlola and Prasad, though, the dispute is not only about what patients lost. It’s about ownership, control, and money—and whether the other side can legally stop the hospital operator from functioning while a new arrangement is negotiated.
Patlola is a minority owner of Resilience Healthcare, which owns and operates West Suburban and Weiss Memorial. Prasad is the majority owner and is in charge of day-to-day hospital operations.
But Patlola’s company Ramco is the sole owner of the land where the hospitals sit. That includes West Suburban’s Oak Park campus, its River Forest campus, Weiss, and associated medical office buildings.
In 2022, Patlola and Prasad bought Weiss Memorial, West Suburban, and West Suburban’s River Forest medical campus from Pipeline Health, which had declared bankruptcy that year.
Before Patlola asked the court to take control, he tried to oust Prasad and evict Resilience from both hospitals and the associated medical office buildings. Prasad then filed suit against Patlola to stop the eviction.
Patlola countersued, asking Stanton to appoint a receiver to take control of West Suburban’s operations and allow the hospital to reopen.
In that lawsuit, Patlola accuses Prasad of “financial mismanagement and malfeasance.” The case seeks financial damages for back rent Patlola says Prasad owes.
Patlola also accuses Prasad of having misused $35 million intended for hospital operations. The suit says Prasad moved the money to a separate bank account and “misappropriated” the funds for his “direct or indirect benefit.”
The lawsuit further accuses Prasad of breaching the hospitals’ leases and demands back rent of more than $24 million.
Prasad disputes the allegations. He says the suit is “without merit,” and that the hospitals’ leases bar Patlola from terminating the agreements or removing the hospital operator.
Prasad also points to an arrangement between the two men for rent. He says they agreed to set rent for the hospital at just $1 a year until the operation shows a profit, which he says hasn’t happened since they bought West Suburban and Weiss.
On the disputed $35 million, Prasad says the money went toward hospital payroll and operating expenses. He says the funds were transferred to a bank account tied to Westlaw Management Group that he says both men can access, though Patlola disputes that.
Inside the courtroom, Stanton is weighing competing versions of the same business record. Lawyers for Prasad and Patlola have been arguing before Stanton about the financial details of Resilience Healthcare.
Both sides have agreed to have recently retired Judge Patrick Sherlock review years of bank records for several accounts tied to Resilience Healthcare and the hospitals. Once Sherlock turns over what he finds to Stanton, closing arguments are expected May 29.
After that, Stanton will decide whether to appoint a receiver to take temporary control of the business.
If Patlola wins the receiver request. he says he’s in talks with Insight Hospital & Medical Center to see whether that company could take over West Suburban. Insight’s CEO says the company is interested in helping reopen West Suburban. Insight previously bought Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in Bronzeville after it nearly closed in 2020.
If Prasad keeps control, he has said he hopes to fully reopen the hospital by late June or early July. In the meantime, he has resumed some clinical services at the Oak Park campus.
The stakes are clear in the way the timeline has already tightened. The area hospitals that remain nearby— including Rush Oak Park Hospital. Loretto Hospital in Austin and Community First Medical Center in Portage Park—have been left to plug the gap left by West Suburban’s closure. For patients, the legal dispute isn’t abstract. It’s measured in days, appointments, and the difficult question of where care will land next.
West Suburban Medical Center Oak Park Cook County Manoj Prasad Rathnakar Reddy Patlola Resilience Healthcare Patlola receiver Patrick Stanton Weiss Memorial Insight Hospital & Medical Center