Suburban Community Hospital has turned into a micro-hospital, laying off 23 nurses

Suburban Community Hospital in Montgomery County converted to a micro-hospital Tuesday, resulting in layoffs for 23 nurses, their union said.

Other nurses were reassigned in the hospital or to other hospitals in the area that are part of the same system.

“It is devastating,” said Octavia Rumer, an emergency department nurse at Suburban.

Suburban is owned by the California-based nonprofit Prime Healthcare Foundation. It remains affiliated with for-profit Prime Healthcare Services Inc., which also owns Lower Bucks and Roxborough Memorial hospitals.

Prime announced the shift to a micro-hospital in May, saying that it was downsizing the 126-bed hospital as part of a process tailoring the health-care services offered to community need.

As a micro-hospital, the East Norriton hospital will maintain its emergency department and have 60 licensed inpatient beds. It will no longer perform surgeries. As part of the downsizing, Prime closed its intensive care unit and operating rooms. It also suspended Suburban Community Hospital’s 15-bed behavioral health unit last fall.

Suburban Community Hospital has struggled financially in recent years, losing services and patients. It has been using its empty floors as movie sets.

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Micro-hospitals are facilities that usually have an emergency department and at least 10 inpatient beds for people who aren’t very sick.

These hospitals, sometimes called neighborhood hospitals, are designed to fill coverage gaps in areas that can’t support a full-scale hospital.

As part of a larger system, micro-hospitals are also a way to draw more referrals to a flagship hospital for advanced care.

Several health systems are expected to open micro-hospitals soon.

In northwestern Montgomery County, Lehigh Valley Health Network is building a new micro-hospital expected to open later this year. The single-story hospital will stand along Route 100 near Gilbertsville in Douglass Township.

ChristianaCare, Delaware’s largest health system, is planning to reopen the former Jennersville Hospital in Penn Township as a micro-hospital early next year. It will expand ChristianaCare’s offerings in southern Chester and Delaware counties, where the nonprofit system has primary and specialty care clinics.

» READ MORE: Southeastern Pennsylvania is getting its first micro-hospitals

For patients who require advanced services no longer offered at Suburban, Prime entered into transfer agreements with multiple hospitals that are within a 30-mile radius from Suburban Community Hospital. Those include: Jefferson Health’s Einstein Philadelphia and Montgomery hospitals, Temple Chestnut Hill Hospital, and Temple University Hospital.

Prime and PASNAP, which represents the nurses at Suburban Community Hospital, have been negotiating a contract since last fall.

The nurses’ contract expired last October. In December, they staged a five-day strike over Christmas but returned to work without a new contract.

Some of the main unresolved issues in negotiations are wages, staffing levels, and the nurses’ health-care benefits, said Shannan Giambrone, a nurse who used to work in the ICU and who is part of the negotiations.

The layoffs imposed through the transition to a micro-hospital have now also reduced the size of the union.

“You say morale is at an all-time low and then you drop lower,” Giambrone said. “People feel very defeated.”