DELAWARE COUNTY (KYW Newsradio) — An attorney for Prospect Medical Holdings, the owner of Chester Crozer Medical Center and Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, told a bankruptcy judge in Northern Texas that the for-profit firm plans to file a motion and close both hospitals unless a short-term solution is found during bankruptcy negotiations on Thursday.
Prospect, which owns 16 hospitals, filed for bankruptcy in January and claimed it is losing millions to keep both facilities open. At the time, the company said the two Delaware County hospitals would remain open, but is now saying it can only keep both open through March 14.
During an appropriations hearing in Harrisburg, Delaware County State Senator Tim Kearney said the potential closings expose how more controls are needed over how major transactions within hospital systems occur.
“Where companies that exist solely to make money for their shareholders are probably not the people who should be running hospital systems and healthcare systems,” he said.
Maureen May, a nurse at Temple University Hospital and President of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, said Prospects actions and now potential closings leave a huge hole in healthcare in Delaware County.
“They came in, they swooped in, I should say, they saw an opportunity to extract as much as they can,” she said. “I take an oath to do no harm. I've been at the bedside for over 40 years, and that's my goal — is to take care of patients and do no harm. It should be made that the corporations do the same.”
The state attorney general’s office is suing Prospect for mismanaging the hospital system. Prospects debts exceed $400 million. In 2018, a private equity firm in control of Prospect at the time issued a $457 million payout, including $90 million for the CEO and $257 million for shareholders.