Where, oh where, will the Cook County Department of Public Health call home?

Cook County Commissioners Peter Silvestri and Earlean Collins today sought to strike down a proposal by the health department to move from its current Oak Park location to Oak Forest in 2011, an undertaking that could cost as much as $5 million. The resolution to prevent the move, presented at this morning’s health and hospital committee meeting, failed with five votes yea and nay, and six commissioners absent.

County health department chief Stephen Martin says the move would bring the health department closer to homeland security and emergency management offices.  The county already owns buildings at the Oak Forest medical campus, and it wouldn’t have to pay the roughly $650,000 in costs at the Oak Park location.

“It’s important to bring everything together,” Martin said in March. But some commissioners worry about the consequences of moving from centrally-located Oak Park to southern Oak Forest.

Commissioners withdrew a resolution to further investigate the costs of collar county hospitals referring poor patients to Cook County hospitals for follow-up care. The resolution, in response to media reports, was introduced by Commissioner Larry Suffredin.

Commissioners approved a non-binding resolution supporting comprehensive health care reform in the United States.