MEDIA, Pa. (KYW Newsradio) — Pennsylvania’s attorney general has filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against a company that owns several Delaware County hospitals. The suit is seeking money and new management for the county's largest health care network.
When the for-profit company Prospect Medical Holdings purchased the nonprofit Crozer Health in 2016, it was agreed that they would not close any of their four hospitals in Delaware County or make any substantial cuts to services for at least a decade, Attorney General Michelle Henry said Tuesday, speaking in Media.
“And the court ordered that those conditions be part of the sale agreement.”
But Henry says those terms were not kept.
“The lawsuit alleges breach of the court-approved purchase contract and other violations,” Henry said.
Since the purchase, Prospect closed Delaware County Memorial Hospital and Springfield Hospital and made significant cuts to Taylor Hospital, in addition to selling the hospital property to make a quick profit.
“Prospect’s decision to sell all the real estate forced the hospitals to pay rent for property that they previously owned,” she said.
She says these and other actions are what led her office to file the lawsuit — “for years of mismanagement, corporate looting and neglect of the hospital system, its patients and its staff.”
Prospect is currently working to sell the remaining open hospitals.
“Our lawsuit intends to have a receiver, an independent third party with experience in hospital management, appointed by the court in the immediate future to oversee the Crozer system until a suitable new one can be put in place,” Henry said.
Henry says she hopes their case will be heard sooner rather than later.
Calls to Prospect Medical Holdings requesting comment were not immediately returned.