Located outside the Crow-Crow Medical Center in Upland, Pa., Which recently closed (Capital-Star Photo John Cole)
Almost two weeks after the official closing of the Crozer-Chester Medical Center, Governor Josh Shapiro, and is the legislators in Delaware, gathered in front of the building to gather support for the provisions that they think would support prevent the closing of other hospitals in Pennsylvania in the future.
“We are here today because Crozer was an extremely important healthcare system here in Delaware, a healthcare system that was forced to close the door and stop serving patients because of greed and improper management of private equity,” Shapiro said on Thursday.
Center Medical Center Crozer-Chester AND Taylor hospital Both are the property of Prospect Medical Holdings, a California company dealing with healthcare. They both closed their doors in the last month, leaving the fifth most populated Pennsylvania with only two hospitals, because Private Equity filed for bankruptcy.
“I did allowing havoc in our healthcare system, havoc in our communities, treating our hospitals like Bank Piggy, which can drain and then break down on the floor. These days have passed,” Shapiro said. “Time for action is now. It’s long since time to defend our local hospitals and nursing facilities and introduce real security against private capital and our community.”
Peggy Malone, president of the Crozer-Chester nurses association, described what Prospect did as “immoral, destructive, but” legal “due to current state regulations. Over the past few years, she noticed that she had previously closed the Springfield Hospital and Delaware County Memorial Hospital hospital as additional examples of prospect.
“I knew the healthcare system before Prospect Medical entered our lives and created our nightmares. I can tell you because I was here,” said Malone. “We allowed the wolves in the door here in Delaware and we can never do it again. Wolf, from outside the state -owned company financed by private equity, entered and without hesitation, without hesitation, without a shadow she ate us all.”
Dr. Max Cooper, who was an ER doctor in Crozer until a recent closure, said that one day after the hospital was closed, the man’s victim was shot in the chest by a pistol one further. Since the closing of the hospital, the man died during a 30-minute trip to Lankenau Medical Center in the neighboring Montgomery.
Shapiro and legislators in the delegation of Delaware at hand at the Thursday press conference say that they believe Bill House 1460 AND Senate Bill 322Named by the Act on the protection of the healthcare system, it would support prevent closures such as Crozer in the future.
The proposal would stop lease agreements in which private equity companies force hospitals to sell land on which facilities are based, and then rent these spaces, which Shapiro called “absurdly high prices”.
Legislation will also enable the Prosecutor General to review and, if necessary, to block or place sales conditions with the participation of healthcare institutions for profit -oriented entities, such as Prospect.
Prosecutor General Dave Sunday’s Sunday told The Capital-Star that they are currently reviewing the projects of this regulations and “we are waiting for a solid negotiation process.”
“Prosecutor General Sunday is an avid supporter of Pennsylvania in every part of the community of nations to have access to inexpensive healthcare,” said his office in a statement. “This is an attitude from which it will not arise, and this office will be involved in all matters in which we have the right to promote healthy communities.”
Senator Tim Kearney (D-Delaware), who sponsored this agent, said that this is the third legislative session that they tried to solve this problem. The chamber passed during the previous session, but did not arrive through both legislative chambers.
In recent months he says that he believes that the tone of the conversation has changed.
“Both sides treat it more seriously now than ever before,” said Kearney.
The proposal in the Chamber is to vote in the first week in June.
Rep. Lisa Borowski (D-Delaware), which sponsors legislation at home calling for reforms, emphasized her personal relationship with the recently closed hospital. In addition to working in healthcare for 30 years and being a daughter of a doctor and a nurse, she noticed that she gave birth to her first son in Crozer Health.
As a result of closing, Borowski noticed that 2651 people are now out of work, and hospitals such as Riddle Hospital, six miles, are overwhelmed by excess people who were previously treated in the previous two facilities belonging to Prospect.
The Department of Labor and Industry is working on the merger of employees who lost their jobs in the hospital with employment resources, organizing a work fair in Subaru Park at the beginning of this week. The state also shows $ 1 million to ensure that EMS services remain available in the county after closing these hospitals.
Capital-Star is looking for a comment from Prospect.
“I will never let you be a perfect enemy,” says Shapiro
While similar regulations regarding the prevention of closing hospitals were introduced during previous sessions, this time there is a difference. Unlike last year, the current project does not supervise the Non -Profit hospital by the Office of the Prosecutor General.
Kearney said he would prefer to include both hospitals belonging to Private Equity and non-profit organizations. He decided, however, that the proposal had not reached the finish in the previous session with this language and hopes that he would introduce a bill to a point where a sufficient number of legislators votes for reforms.
“There is, as you can imagine, many quite powerful interests that work here, including the Hospital and Health Association in Pennsylvania (HAP), which opposed the law last year,” said Kearney.
However, Kearney said that they work “very hard to get to the point where we can neutrally”, with this proposal.
Shapiro also repeated a similar tone, noting that the general assembly is divided between democrats and Republicans. He would prefer to have a more wide version of this measure, but a compromise may be needed.
“I want to have a strong bill, a bill that protects the community against motives looking for profits that we saw here in Delaware, but I will never let you perfectly be the enemy of the possible” – said Shapiro.
Conducting prospect?
Shapiro and other legislators talked about the length of the desire to pull the “responsible” perspective for closing many hospitals.
“We know who did it. Prospect did it, simple and simple, and they did not have to do it,” said Shapiro. “They took so much money from this healthcare system that they can no longer make wages to great nurses, medical doctors and staff, and others who poured their heart and soul to this hospital.”
“But the point is that the money not only disappeared in the air, that the money they suck out of this institution set the pockets of these management staff in prospect” – he added. “Their poorly gained profits deserve more control.”
Over the past seven months, Shapiro said that the state has paid than $ 15 million to maintain the opening of the hospital.
The Office of the Prosecutor General is fighting the prospect in the Bankruptcy Court.
The representative of the Leanne Krueger (D-Delaware) state asked them “to do everything they can to recover the money we have invested in this system and, hopefully, open a criminal investigation, so these guys are really held responsible.”
Asked if he believes that criminal allegations should be submitted against Prospect, Shapiro said that this is a question for the office of the Prosecutor General. The spokesman for Sunday did not answer the question about the criminal investigation.
What about other hospitals belonging to private equity?
After closing Crozer in Pennsylvania, there are 13 hospitals, which are still the property of Private Equity, in accordance with Private equity stakeholder project (PSP).
“I’m worried about the quality of care in these communities. I’m afraid that especially our rural hospitals, which are shaky on the edge, belonging to private equity, and even some people who are not particularly in the medicaid cuts considered, which are considered in Washington,” Shapiro told journalists. “So I’m very worried.”
Shapiro said that legislation could not return and withdraw the transaction that took place in accordance with the law, so private equity would still be the owners of these hospitals if these proposals were implemented. He said, however, that it would turn out whether the Prosecutor General is received additional authorization under this provisions of management of healthcare institutions, which are currently the property of private equity.
“Open ER now”
Shortly after the press conference, the car tried to pull the hospital parking lot with something that seemed to be a medical situation with the participation of a child who was seen by doctors on the spot.
Peggy Malone, president of the Crozer-Chester Nurse Association, told journalists after this incident that there was an example of why the hospital must remain open.
“No child should never die because your bastards closed our hospital,” said Malone, clearly nervous. “They never cared for people in this community. But we do so and that’s why we fought so hard and someone has to open our installments now.”
Malone said that because their hospital is not open, the child would have to be treated in the nearest hospital, about 30 minutes.
“If this child died today, devastation that would cause the whole family, it is unbearable, and it cannot happen,” said Malone. “He must stop now, open our er.”
“There is no reason to be closed. Get a perspective from here. Get their responsibility and open our ER now,” she said, and then applause for others who are also standing.
Malone said that there are individuals and floors that can be opened to treat these crisis situations, and said that the perspective is on the road to it.
“Take us there. We’ll take care of it, but there are units that can be restored,” said Malone.
“You can keep us and go. It may be smaller. It may not look like this, but open,” she added. “No child should die.”
