[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 161 (Thursday, December 13, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8020-S8021]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      THANKING SISTER SHEILA LYNE

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, if the rough and tumble of Chicago 
politics is not where you would expect to find a slightly built 
Catholic nun, you have never met Sister Sheila Lyne. Sister Sheila has 
been an icon in Chicago health care for almost half a century. For 
nearly 10 years in the 1990s she made history as Chicago's public 
health commissioner.
  For 15 years before her work as Chicago's top public health officer 
and for another dozen years afterwards, this smart, visionary 
courageous woman also served as president and CEO of Mercy Hospital & 
Medical Center, a legendary institution that has helped care for poor 
families on the South Side of Chicago since before the Civil War. As 
public health commissioner, Sister Sheila was never afraid to tackle 
the powerful. Her decisions were based on conscience, and an iron will. 
She was once arrested for ignoring a judge's order to test every child 
in a Chicago public school for lead poisoning because she believed the 
edict was unnecessarily broad and could hurt children and deplete her 
department's limited resources. She was out of jail 2 hours later.
  The first time she took over as president of Mercy Hospital, in 1976, 
Mercy was bleeding money and on the verge of closing. Sister Sheila's 
business savvy and innovative management ideas helped put the hospital 
back in the black. In 2000, following a series of management blunders, 
Mercy was losing $40 million a year and once again about to go down for 
the count. Sister Sheila stepped down as Chicago's public health 
commissioner and returned as Mercy's president and CEO to lead the 
hospital's turnaround effort. Once again, she succeeded with a series 
of shrewd business decisions, innovative reforms, and determination. A 
year ago, Sister Sheila helped engineer the sale of Mercy Hospital to 
Trinity Health, the tenth-largest health system in the Nation and the 
fourth-largest Catholic health system.
  Last week, at the age of, as she says, ``76\1/2\''--she insists 
including the half--Sister Sheila announced that she will step down as 
president and CEO of Mercy Hospital as soon as her successor can be 
named. While she will remain with Mercy as senior adviser to Mercy 
Foundation, the hospital's philanthropic arm, her departure as Mercy's 
president and CEO will bring to a close one of the most remarkable 
careers in Chicago health care in our lifetimes.
  Sheila Lyne was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, one of 
three children of Irish immigrants who met in America. She attended 
Little Flower Elementary School and Mercy High School. She joined the 
Sisters of Mercy, a Catholic religious order, in 1953. She earned a 
master's degree in psychiatric nursing from St. Xavier College and an 
MBA from the University of Chicago and served three years as an 
assistant professor at the University of Iowa before joining Mercy 
Hospital in 1970. In 1976 she became Mercy's president and CEO.
  In 1991, Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed her city health 
commissioner--the first woman and the first non-physician ever to hold 
that job. The department's responsibilities ran the gamut from 
inspecting restaurants, to monitoring and controlling epidemics, and 
protecting the public against the spread of infectious diseases. Its 
clinics receive a million patient visits a year and are the ``family 
doctor'' to more Chicagoans than any other single entity.
  HIV and AIDS were taking a devastating and rising toll on the city 
and the nation, and gay and lesbian groups protested Sister Sheila's 
appointment strongly, fearing she would allow Church policies to 
dictate public health decisions. Sister Sheila surprised her critics by 
taking on the cause of fighting AIDS, increasing care and prevention 
funding from $4 million to $40 million and promoting aggressive, even 
controversial prevention efforts. She gained national acclaim for her 
innovative programs to improve the health of poor women and children.
  When she learned that the department had no way to know which areas 
of the city faced particular problems, she set up an epidemiology 
department. Data from that department helped her department to focus 
and improve its efforts. She visited elementary schools, pregnancy 
crisis centers, welfare clinics, homeless shelters and senior centers 
throughout the city, listening to people's stories in order to better 
understand their lives--and always looking for better ways to combat 
the city's health challenges.

[[Page S8021]]

  When she started, the infant mortality rate in some poor Chicago 
neighborhoods was lower than in many developing nations. Sister Sheila 
recruited two women in the Robert Taylor Homes, a large public housing 
complex, asked them to find pregnant residents and escort them to one 
of the department's eight free-standing clinics for prenatal care. 
During her tenure, she reduced the city's infant mortality rate by 39 
percent.
  She sent a van to circulate through Chicago's poorer neighborhoods, 
providing immunizations for children and dramatically increasing the 
percentage of kids who are up to date on their shots. She created a 
citywide plan--hailed by the Centers for Disease Control--as a model to 
combat what she called the insidious public health epidemic of domestic 
violence. She created special programs to reach minority and immigrant 
families and established an Office of Lesbian and Gay Health, only the 
second such office in the Nation.
  Sister Lyne received many honors, including the Excellence in Public 
Award from the blue-ribbon panel of Chicago's business and industry 
leaders.
  Dr. Joanne Smith, president and CEO of the Rehabilitation Institute 
of Chicago, recently praised Sister Sheila and said she was one of 
those leaders who, when she gets behind something, is a train that is 
difficult to stop.
  Three years ago Sister Lyne helped prod the Illinois General Assembly 
to pass a groundbreaking new law capping how much hospitals could 
charge uninsured patients, so that instead of being the only people who 
are billed the full sticker price, their bills are closer to what other 
patients pay.
  She comes to the office 7 days a week--usually by 7 a.m.--half walks 
and half jogs 3 miles a day. Some days she trades the walk for the 
elliptical and Stairmaster. She is 76\1/2\ years old. She speaks of 
Mercy Hospital as a mission and believes that health care is a public 
good. She is, in her own words, ``so grateful and so privileged that I 
have been able to be a part of making things better.''
  However, she is troubled and frustrated by all the unmet needs. When 
asked what changes she has seen in health care in the last half 
century, she replies very simply: Not enough. She asks pointedly: Who 
doesn't deserve health care?
  In closing, I want to read a short excerpt from the Chicago Sun-Times 
editorial. Here is what they said:

       Some people fight for the poor and dispossessed by marching 
     on the castle, torches high. Others, fighting the same fight, 
     cross the drawbridge and work from the inside, maneuvering 
     the levers of power, mastering the arts of management and 
     poll politics.
       Sister Sheila Lyne . . . is the second kind of activist, 
     remarkably so, having done much to make Chicago a more caring 
     city for half a century.

  The editorial went on to say:

       Sister Sheila . . . says it's time she calls it quits, but 
     we suspect we'll see her again. She is of a generation of 
     Catholic sisters, and of a particularly steely order--the 
     Sisters of Mercy--who tend to work until they can't work 
     anymore. They are smart, educated women who run things. They 
     are tough and ramrod straight. And we would rather they never 
     retire. Certainly not this one.

  Well, anyone anywhere who questions the catholicity or the 
Christianity of American Catholic nuns needs to meet Sister Sheila, a 
woman who has given her life to the least of our brethren.
  Loretta and I and countless Chicagoans of three generations feel 
exactly the same way. Sister Sheila Lyne's passionate devotion to 
health care and justice has made Chicago a healthier and better city, 
and we are all in her debt.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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