When it comes to matters of life and death, a few miles can mean everything.

They can determine who has access to healthy foods, good jobs with good insurance, and

access to quality health care.

And there are a few stretches of geography in the US where the gap between who lives and

dies, mile by mile, is as pronounced as the one separating Chicago's wealthier, wider

north side from the poor, mostly black neighborhoods on the city's southwest sides.

The gap in life expectancy in some of these neighborhoods is as wide as 30 years.

In Chicago, one of the most segregated American cities, race and proximity to quality health

care, are inextricably linked.

A delicate fault line that's been driven wider as COVID-19 continues to infect and kill

black people disproportionately.

At the same time, black Chicagoans are seeing hospitals in their communities closing at

an alarming rate.

Since 2018, three hospitals on the southwest sides have closed.

And now a fourth, Mercy Hospital, the oldest hospital in the city, and a south side institution

that stood on South Michigan Avenue for nearly 170 years, is scheduled to be shuttered

as early as February.

If Mercy Hospital closes, it will create a health care crisis in a community that's already

struggling.

The reasons for these closures are many, a broken health care system shattered further by

the pandemic, systemic racism and classism, simple dollars and cents.

But the impact may be more acute.

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