WOODLYN, P.A. (KYW Newsradio) — For a majority of her life, Ridley Park native Missy Nichols has gone to Milmont Park Family Practice in Woodlyn for all her medical needs and check ups.
“I’ve been a patient since I was 15 and now that I’m in my glorious 40’s it’s been some time,” she said.
But now, Nichols and many others who’ve gone to Milmont Park for years are left scrambling amid the imminent closure of Crozer Health.
The biggest blows to Delaware County as a result of the closure will be its two hospitals, Crozer-Taylor Hospital and Crozer-Chester Medical Center — shuttering on May 2 — but there are dozens of medical practices like Milmont Park that will also cease operations.
The closure comes after Crozer’s parent company, Prospect Medical Holdings, declared bankruptcy in January. Both hospitals are also now diverting emergency room patients.
“I was supposed to have a physical to handle some of the things that I’m dealing with and then I got a call stating that I had to be canceled because the office was closing,” said Nichols. “It left me stunned and concerned.”
Janet Belancio found out the news Wednesday morning as she went to pick up her medicine.
“For somebody with a panic disorder, and depression, and anxiety, I’m feeling it bad,” she said.
Belancio said Milmont Park was vital to her care not only because she could get her medicine, but she could also do in-person sessions with a psychiatrist.
Milmont Park Family Practice is set to close in the next few days, and Nichols said with it will vanish a continuity of care she and many others have known their whole lives.
“That was all going to end in a moment's notice, and I’d be on my own, have to find a new care physician and I would also then have to request my own medical records so I could supply them to a new doctor,” she said.
Belancio said she is once again looking for help.
“People with mental illness suffer, and we’re suffering now, and we’re going to continue to suffer until someone fixes this,” she said.