Hospitals Endangered In Delco, Chesco
By Bob Small
West Grove’s Jennersville Hospital closed on Dec. 31 and Caln’s Brandywine Hospital closed on Jan. 31. These institutions in Chester County are owned by Tower Health and lost $42 million in the last fiscal year.
In my Delaware County, Crozer Health Systems which operates Crozer- Chester, Delaware County Memorial, Springfield, and Taylor hospitals, along with outpatient centers and physician practices is being sold to ChristianaCare Health System.
While Delaware County Memorial has closed its maternity ward, and Taylor has ended its hospice program, the hospitals are remaining open for the time being, according to Kevin M. Spiegel, chief executive officer of Crozer Health.
We should note that Crozer Chester is the hospital for Chester, Pa., one of the poorest cities in the nation. All four of these hospitals serve, or served, a population with limited medical coverage mobility, who were unable to use their coverage in other hospitals.
In the mean times, and these will be mean times, some of us have coverage that let us use hospitals in say, Delaware or Philadelphia. Most in Chesco and Delco do not. Many of these residents will be scrambling to find a hospital to use. Some may fail. For some, these are just regular routine tests, but for others…..
Since we started this article, Chester County Common Pleas Court Judge Edward Griffith has given hope to saving Brandywine and Jennersville hospitals by ordering Tower Health to resume negotiatons with Canyon Atlantic Partners. A sale fell through in December.
At a Feb. 15 town hall, State Senator Tim Kearney (D-26) responded, D-26, responded to my query about asset striping, citing the Hahnemann Hospital case, by saying that the State Legislature had various pending bills to address this. He favored hospitals being run by non-profits such as ChristianaCare rather than for-profit entities like Crozer Health.