POTTSTOWN, Pa – Berks County-based Tower Health has just announced another round of layoffs, and healthcare workers say they’ve seen this before.
“This is the playbook, we’ve seen it over and over again. We’ve seen it with Hahnemann, with Crozer, with Suburban; we’ve seen this in many hospitals in PASNAP that have closed,” said Maureen May, President of PASNAP.
Yet another round of layoffs, but this time with 160 job cuts at Pottstown Hospital in Montgomery County.
“The patients are not going to get the care that they need, and even if they do get the care, the care is going to be fragmented,” May said.
West Reading-based Tower Health, which owns Pottstown Hospital, announced the cuts this week.
This comes after 130 job cuts occurred at the hospital in November.
The President of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals says this will strain other area hospitals, including those in Berks County.
“There’s no more profit to be extracted from this system, and the community will suffer,” May said.
In a statement this week, Tower Health says this is about making sure patients continue to have access to high-quality, local healthcare for decades to come.
Tower Health says it plans to make a multi-million-dollar investment in Pottstown Hospital to expand the Emergency Department and enhance behavioral health services.
The advocacy group says health care workers plan to meet with Tower Health next week.
“We’re preparing to negotiate, and we’re hoping that we can negotiate in good faith and mitigate some of the significant damages that will happen.”
Tower officials point out that no clinical programs are closing. They say that once the behavioral health and emergency room expansions are done, they will create nearly 40 new roles.