Crozer patients in limbo as Delco health system’s future remains uncertain

An emergency room visit earlier this winter showed Kathy Rich how her medical care would be complicated by the closing of Crozer-Chester Medical Center, where she’s been a patient for decades.

Rich slipped and fell on the ice in front of her Glenolden house while hauling in groceries for the watch party she was throwing to cheer on the Eagles in the NFC Championship. She fractured her ankle in three places.

Instead of being taken to Crozer, an ambulance drove her to Lankenau Medical Center in Wynnewood. Crozer’s financial challenges have depleted its ambulance fleet, with some being diverted to nonemergency calls.

» READ MORE: Crozer Health pulls emergency ambulances into hospital service, leaving towns short on service

The incident made Rich think about what it would be like to lose the health system she has relied on for 30 years: longer, more complicated routes to farther-away hospitals, potentially finding new doctors, and navigating insurance challenges.

“I’ve been with Crozer for over 30 years — that’s over 30 years of my medical records,” said Rich, 53, who has no complaints about Lankenau, but prefers Crozer’s convenience. “I wouldn’t want to change.”

She started a Change.org petition to urge lawmakers to stop the Crozer hospitals from closing, amassing more than 1,900 signatures as of March 17.

Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland and its sister hospital, Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, are critical safety net medical facilities in a densely populated part of Delaware County. Nearly 40% of Crozer’s patient revenue comes from Medicaid, the publicly funded health insurance program for low-income families and individuals. The health system has the county’s only trauma center, burn unit, and inpatient psychiatric treatment center, and its maternity services include the area’s highest-level neonatal intensive care unit.

Crozer’s for-profit owner based in California, Prospect Medical Holdings Inc., filed for bankruptcy Jan. 11 and is prepared to shut down the hospitals. The Foundation for Delaware County, which supports community health needs, contributed $7 million to keep the hospitals open until March 28.

Crozer CEO Tony Esposito said the temporary foundation funding allows facilities to remain open “while working towards a permanent go-forward plan that is in the best interest of the Delaware County community.”

Prospect told a federal bankruptcy judge Wednesday that it and the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office are negotiating the sale of the Crozer facilities to an unidentified nonprofit entity. The next update in court is expected March 26.

Ahead of the Wednesday hearing, local politicians filed a memo to the judge overseeing Prospect’s bankruptcy case saying they fear that closing Crozer would increase deaths among trauma patients who aren’t able to reach care in time. They said the repercussions could be “catastrophic” for the area’s other hospitals, which face their own financial and capacity challenges.

» READ MORE: The scramble to keep Crozer’s health-care services amid Prospect bankruptcy

What happens next is uncertain. Hospitals are required to provide at least 60 days’ notice to the Pennsylvania Department of Health when they plan to close a service, to give patients time to find alternative care. Hospitals in bankruptcy sometimes close sooner. Some Crozer doctors have been telling their patients they will stay with them, even if the health system shutters. But Prospect says it doesn’t have any money to continue paying staff, and doctors may not be able to immediately join different health systems.

“It’s just scary,” said Rich.

One woman who signed Rich’s petition said Crozer saved her husband after a head trauma, and treated her son for a severe burn. Another said that she was close to sepsis with a perforated colon when she arrived at Crozer.

“If not for the hospital being close and available with the staff needed,” a woman named Donna wrote on the Change.org petition, “I would be dead.”

A couple of weeks ago, Berwyn resident Leslie Padilla decided it was time to reach out to the Crozer doctors she’s been seeing for at least a decade at the organization’s medical office in Glen Mills.

Padilla, 53, wanted to know what would happen if Crozer closes. Would she be able to stay with her specialists, a gastroenterologist and a dermatologist involved in treating her autoimmune disease? Padilla’s gastroenterologist, Joyann Kroser, assured her that her care team, including a primary care doctor, would stick with her.

“I feel totally relieved now,” Padilla said. “I actually worry more for my doctor, because I want her to be happy.”

The importance of keeping Crozer’s outpatient medical practices, like those in Broomall and Glen Mills, is on the radar of officials making contingency plans, said Marlow Levy, president of Trinity mid-Atlantic’s Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby and Saint Francis Hospital in Wilmington.

The goal would be to prevent disruption in patient care. “They may see the name on the side of the building change, but hopefully their providers don’t change,” he said.

A closure could be especially disruptive for patients who are planning to give birth at Crozer. Doctors must have admitting privileges to treat patients at a hospital; Crozer’s obstetricians may not be able to accompany patients to give birth at other hospitals.

“You’re asking somebody to face the greatest intensity and pain, and then throwing a huge pivot: Nope, not your provider, not your hospital. Good luck finding a way,” said Melissa Lucchesi, a Media-based doula whose business, Moon Sage Mama, focuses on trauma-informed birth support.

The next nearest hospitals that offer labor and delivery are Riddle Hospital in Media and Lankenau in Montgomery County, both part of Main Line Health, and Trinity’s Saint Francis Hospital in Wilmington.

Direct bus routes to West Philadelphia may make the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania the next best option for people who rely on public transportation.

Obstetricians at Trinity’s Saint Francis Hospital, where the labor and delivery unit has capacity for more patients, have offered support for Crozer patients if they need a place to deliver a baby, Levy said.

Important care during the prenatal and postpartum periods is also at risk if Crozer closes, said Theresa Pettaway, who founded the Pettaway Pursuit Foundation in 2001 to support Black mothers and low-income families in the area.

Pettaway said she is concerned that reducing maternity services in the area could worsen maternal mortality rates, particularly among Black patients.

Patients may have to travel farther for care and lose access to the doctors they’ve come to trust.

“If people are not getting to the hospital in time, it’s a disservice to all the education and programs we put in place,” she said.

Crozer-Chester is a fixture in its Upland neighborhood, where brick rowhouses line narrow streets.

On a recent Friday, Dave O’Brien parked his Subaru near the hospital to help a police officer stack the orange traffic cones that had blocked the road while a fire crew extinguished a small HVAC fire on the emergency department roof.

O’Brien, who lives nearby, said he worries about neighborhood safety if Crozer closes, leaving behind a large, vacant property. He said the area feels safe in part because there are always police officers and emergency responders nearby.

A woman who identified herself by her first name only, Juanita, said she hasn’t considered yet what she’ll do if Crozer closes. She routinely makes the 15-minute bus ride from her home in Delaware County to Crozer for checkups, tests, and scans.

She took out from her purse a sandwich wrapped in tinfoil to eat while she waited for the bus.

“It’s in God’s hands, I guess,” she said.