Internal city documents obtained by NBC 5 Investigates show Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration was aware as far back as October that “overcrowding individuals” in the city’s migrant shelters put both migrants and shelter staff at “higher risk of contagious illnesses.”
Those same records, obtained by NBC 5 Investigates through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests, show that the city was aware that a “lack of space” within Chicago’s migrant shelter system provided “increased challenges” with both placing people and providing “initial healthcare.”
The reports emerged as part of a larger NBC 5 Investigates’ review of thousands of pages of internal city records, which revealed potential gaps in the Johnson administration’s approach to addressing the health needs of migrants.
In the months that followed those initial reports - as the City of Chicago worked to clear migrants from police stations - the number of people packed into the Halsted shelter in Pilsen ballooned from more than 1,000 people in its early weeks of operation to more than 2,500.
Complaints emerged about food and access to health care.
Migrants told NBC 5 Investigates that there wasn’t room to separate and people were sick.
During a council committee hearing in late January, city officials admitted the city’s largest shelter had no isolation room.
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While two medical providers do provide health assessments at the shelters, the city’s own records show they provide those screenings once or twice a week.
Migrants we spoke to off-camera said this created a bottleneck that restricted people’s access to care.
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Among our other findings:
- For the month of November alone, there were at least 272 medical runs to all of the city’s migrant shelters and police districts, according to city records. That figure could be an undercount as they're based on what the city included in its situational reports.
- 86 of the emergency medical runs involved children.
- At least 27 of the medical runs mentioned a patient with a fever.
The Halsted shelter alone had 30 medical runs in November, according to the city’s reports.
On Dec. 17, 5-year-old Jean Carlos Martinez Rivero was found unresponsive at the Halsted shelter and later died.
A medical examiner’s report released earlier this month found the boy died from sepsis due to strep; COVID and two other viral infections were listed as contributing factors.
A more detailed report, obtained by NBC 5 Investigates, shows that strep was found in the boy’s blood, liver and spleen “indicating a widespread bacterial infection.”
There’s no mention in the medical examiner records that Jean Carlos Martinez Rivero had seen a doctor in the days leading up to his death.
The medical examiner’s report does note that he had a “history of recent fevers” and that two days before his death, he had taken over-the-counter pain relievers, including Tylenol and what his family thought was Ibuprofen, provided by someone at the shelter.
Prior to going unresponsive on Sunday, Dec. 17, his family had been out panhandling, according to an officer’s report. Jean Carlos returned to the shelter and had vomited his electrolyte drink. He mentioned that he was bloated and needed to use the restroom, which is when his “eyes rolled back in his head” and he appeared to have a seizure, the report says. His family requested an ambulance and staff began to perform CPR.
Medical examiners did find that Jean Carlos had suffered a recent fall and had lacerations on his legs. Blood was found on the brain, but a medical examiner wrote that it was a “nonspecific incidental finding and was not related to the cause of death.”
Other migrants weigh in
Another migrant woman, who asked not to be identified out of fear of reprisal, said when her son became sick with a fever in early October, shelter staff at the Halsted shelter told her to notify them when he was “really, really sick” and that they would call an ambulance. According to her, she was told she would need $1000. It was money she didn’t have and the woman said she chose to care for her son without the ambulance.
Her family was at the shelter in December when they witnessed Jean Carlos go unresponsive. She said that although she was grateful to the city for the shelter, her family has since left and they are temporarily living with a host family.
NBC 5 Investigates reached out to the shelter operator, Favorite Healthcare Staffing, and the mayor’s spokesman for a response Monday.
Four other migrants who spoke to NBC 5 Investigates off-camera outside the Halsted shelter said that their health needs are now being better addressed and that they noticed a marked improvement since the death of Jean Carlos.
But one woman shared that there are still challenges – she recently received a $1,600 medical bill for a November treatment for her daughter. The woman said she has no means to pay it.
“I don’t know anyone who has worked with this population, who feels like we have done a particularly good job when it comes to medical care,” said Annie Gomberg, a volunteer who has worked with migrants at shelters and at the city’s designated landing zone.
Gomberg has been critical of the Johnson administration’s response to the migrant crisis.
In the days after the death of 5-year-old Jean Carlos Martinez Rivero, volunteers – including medically-trained volunteers with the Mobile Migrant Health Team, comprised of University of Illinois Chicago medical students – expressed concern that they were being denied access to the shelters but were willing to help.
When NBC 5 Investigates asked Mayor Johnson about this in late December, Johnson said he was unaware that medically-trained volunteers were willing to help and questioned where we got that information.
Representatives of the Mobile Migrant Health Team had previously testified before a council committee hearing in late September, describing what they saw as hurdles and asking to help. The group's work was also featured by NBC 5 Investigates and several other news outlets.
“In my estimation there has always been a gap, the need has always dwarfed the effort and there has always been insufficient coordination,” Gomberg said.
Mayor Johnson responds
When NBC 5 Investigates questioned Johnson last week about if his administration could’ve done a better job addressing the healthcare needs of migrants, Johnson said:
“Well, first of all, I’ve expressed my condolences and my deep sorrow for the loss of this baby boy, you know, as a father of three children… it's an unimaginable pain.
You know, as far as you know, the health care that we have provided, along with the county, of course, we've had our challenges, that was never a secret. People were arriving in the city of Chicago in a very extreme…. it just wasn't right the way people were arriving here and we were responding to it to the best of our ability,” Mayor Johnson told NBC 5 Investigates following last week’s council meeting.
Gomberg said, however, “It’s hard for me to think that professionals – that people who work in this field – that people who work in public health, that work in medicine would say that this is the best of our ability.”
Johnson said that his office has since announced partnerships with additional providers – including volunteers, who told NBC 5 Investigates that while their talks remain ongoing with the city – they have yet to gain access to the migrant shelters.
