What\u2019s the plan for Crozer-Chester Medical Center?<\/p>\n
Polack said \u201csize, size and size\u201d played a role in Crozer-Chester Medical Center\u2019s demise.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have about a 750,000-to-a-million square-foot inpatient hospital. And today, you could meet the same emergency services demand, giving you all the hospital-based services you need in a tenth of the size,\u201d Polack said.\n<\/p>\n
He argued that contemporary medical care is centered around outpatient treatment rather than overnight stays. This tug of war between inpatient and outpatient care dominated much of the conversation Tuesday night.\n<\/p>\n
Polack said phase one of the company\u2019s vision is to restore services on the main campus where the hospital is located. Phase two involves adding complementary services on the west campus.\n <\/p>\n
While Klein said an emergency room is \u201cabsolutely part of the plan,\u201d he underscored his belief that the campus has a robust urgent care setup to strike a balance.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the other thing that this community needs, and I feel it in my bones, is good preventive care,\u201d Klein said. \u201cSo, if diabetes is taken care of early, the heart disease is taken care of early, and you don\u2019t need to have that many people going to an emergency room because they get good continuous care.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Klein clarified that the plan is not to shrink the number of beds by 90%. However, he declined to settle on a concrete number. Polack said they may resurrect some semblance of a behavioral health facility on the campus.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not going to be a micro hospital,\u201d he said. \u201cLet me be very clear. That\u2019s not what I\u2019m involved in this for.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Klein contextualized their plans in what he categorized as a \u201cbad federal environment\u201d for bringing back a dead hospital. He said he doesn\u2019t want perfection \u201cto be the enemy of the good.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in a health care crisis in this country that\u2019s been unprecedented,\u201d Klein said. \u201cWe have a federal government cutting funding to health care, looking to remove $900 billion over the next decade from federal support for health care. The National Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that by the turn of the next decade, we will be short about 125,000 physicians in this country and almost 300,000 nurses across all nursing specialties.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
There were some tense moments during the town hall. Most of those instances focused on Chariot Allaire Partners\u2019 profit motives. Given the region\u2019s recent history with Prospect, some in attendance accused the new ownership group of being a private equity firm. Following the meeting, Polack denied those claims.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are happy to own the real estate,\u201d Polack said. \u201cWe\u2019re happy to sell the real estate. We\u2019re happy to partner with that not-for-profit operating system. Whatever will meet the needs of the community is a structure that we are willing to engage in and explore.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Polack declined to name the suitors interested in running the resuscitated campus. However, he said the operator-to-be will have a final say on which services will be at the facility.\n<\/p>\n
Is Delaware County on board with the vision?<\/p>\n
Some attendees said they felt a sense of guarded hopefulness following the presentation.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThis sounds very promising,\u201d Annette Holloway, 66, said. \u201cAt least we\u2019re hearing something. This has been going on long enough.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Holloway, a Chester resident who was employed by Crozer for more than three decades, said she feels bad witnessing ambulances zip past the vacant Crozer-Chester Medical Center to a hospital much farther away.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can hopefully bring them back to that facility so they can get their patient care,\u201d Holloway said.\n<\/p>\n
A few community members said they are still in shock that Crozer is gone for good.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBeen a resident of Chester all my life \u2014 never would have thought that I\u2019d see Crozer go out. Never would have thought that in a million years,\u201d Blendenna Taylor, 67, said.\n<\/p>\n
Taylor said she had to go to Riddle Hospital in Media since Crozer shut down. She waited nine hours to be seen, but she still expressed gratitude.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re overworked,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cIt\u2019s sad that this is where we are today.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Peggy Malone, a former Crozer-Chester nurse, said Polack has been engaged in dialogue with former employees in recent months. Although she\u2019s not a fan of the timeline to restore services, she\u2019s \u201cvery cautiously optimistic.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI do believe he has a commitment to restoring health services to this community,\u201d Malone said. \u201cI believe he is committed to making sure that the people who worked at Crozer have jobs again. I think that\u2019s going to be very dependent on the nonprofit operator that comes in and so I don\u2019t think he can promise that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Dr. Max Cooper, a former emergency room physician at Crozer-Chester, said the rehabilitated facility should offer psychiatric care and trauma care. Regarding the presentation, Cooper said his opinions are still \u201cin flux.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019ll really be heavily influenced by who the clinical partner they bring in is,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Taylor Hospital could reopen before Crozer-Chester Medical Center \u2014 if the right operator comes along<\/p>\n
State Sen. Tim Kearney, D-Delaware County, said there has to be a balance between being \u201cas supportive as possible\u201d of the new ownership group and keeping an eye on the minutiae of how the project is financed.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that this company is a for-profit company, that doesn\u2019t really bother me so much,\u201d Kearney said. \u201cI just want to know how they\u2019re going to raise the money \u2014 because it\u2019s not going to be coming from the state. There\u2019ll be some money coming from the state, but it\u2019s certainly not, you know. What their plans are, they\u2019re talking about a $250 million price tag.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where his concern lies, he said. However, Kearney praised the presentation for its thoroughness, particularly Klein\u2019s answers. Kearney, like Malone, said he\u2019s \u201ccautiously optimistic.\u201d He said legislators have already met with leaders from Chariot Allaire Partners, including Polack.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knows that we\u2019re watching him,\u201d Kearney said. \u201cHe knows what we went through with Crozer.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Although Crozer-Chester Medical Center is at least a few years away from receiving new life, Kearney believes that Delaware County might catch a much-needed break a little earlier.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re hopeful that Taylor [Hospital] will be open sooner than any of [the other hospitals], because it\u2019s in pretty good shape and the size and scale are correct already and if they can convince one of the systems to come in and make it work, then that could be the quickest way to get something done,\u201d Kearney said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the plan for Crozer-Chester Medical Center? Polack said \u201csize, size and size\u201d played a role in Crozer-Chester…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[256506,122163,41347,97,252,253],"class_list":["post-586399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-crozer","tag-crozer-closure","tag-delaware-county","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}