Elected officials, health care workers criticize Prospect for operating room closure at Taylor Hospital

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Elected officials joined dozens of health care workers Thursday afternoon outside of Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park to lambaste Prospect Medical Holdings for gutting health care in Delaware County.

Starting Sept. 1, all operating room services at Taylor Hospital will cease indefinitely.

“In the eight years Prospect has owned the Crozer Health system, they’ve closed two of the four hospitals and left those patient communities high and dry,” said Lisa Konialian, at PASNAP’s press conference.

Konialian has been a nurse at Taylor for 35 years and her last day at work is Friday. Her position was eliminated, but she opted to retire prior to potentially being let go.

“Mothers, fathers, grandparents and children in those communities are worse off now than they were before Prospect barged into our community in 2016,” she said.

WHYY News first reported the ward closure Aug. 12. Crozer CEO Tony Esposity cited a reduction in surgeons and a need to consolidate services for the shuttering of the unit.

Taylor Hospital was established in 1910 as a passion project inside the home of Dr. Horace Furness Taylor and his wife, Katherine, who was a nurse. The recent cutbacks in services will fundamentally alter the delivery of health care to southeast Delco.

The choice to end operating room services comes as Crozer’s for-profit parent company, Prospect Medical Holdings, hustles to offload the system to New Jersey-based CHA Partners.

“When they should have been paying their suppliers and supporting their staff, they chose to cut corners and starve this institution from the resources it desperately needs,” state Sen. Tim Kearney told the crowd. “And now as they steer towards a sale to a so-called buyer of last resort, they want us to believe that their hands are clean. Well, we know better.”

In February, the California-based Prospect agreed to a court-approved deal to sell Crozer within 270 days. The company and the state first engaged in the agreement in October 2023 in the aftermath of Crozer shuttering vital services and programs at hospitals, failing to pay vendors and laying off staff. The issues have persisted.

State Rep. Leanne Krueger said a Crozer doctor called her on Wednesday to inform her about the fresh round of layoffs.

“We need Prospect out of Delaware County. We need to save our health care. We need to get this system back into locally controlled, nonprofit hands as soon as we possibly can,” Krueger said.

Local lawmakers at Thursday’s rally renewed their calls for legislation that would regulate hospital acquisitions and mergers.

“There are places where health care is a luxury across our commonwealth,” state Rep. Lisa Borowski said. “There is a growing number of health care deserts. And this is due to the steady increase of health system consolidations and closures. Sadly, Delaware County is becoming one of those places.”

Two hospitals in the county — Delaware County Memorial and Springfield — are virtually closed. The latest development with Taylor doesn’t inspire much confidence among neighbors.

Joan Miller, 73, said the end of operating room services will devastate her small community in nearby Milmont Park. She recalled getting her tonsils removed there as a child. It makes her emotional.

“I’m sickened is what I am — especially at my age now, needing the health care system,” Miller said.

Kim Fox, a 29-year nursing veteran in Taylor’s post-anesthesia care unit, said the hospital has been a home away from home for her and many of her coworkers.

“It’s heartbreaking. We’re all so upset,” Fox said. “We’ve been a family for years and years and years. To see us all torn apart — it’s very, very sad.”

When a union forms, the labor board presents the local with a tally of ballots outlining the vote breakdown. At the conclusion of the press conference, PASNAP presented each of the affected nurses with a copy of the tally and a bouquet of flowers.