Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Healthcare workers protest at Crozer-Chester Medical Center
Nurses, technical specialists, professionals, and paramedics who work in the Crozer Health system took to the street in front of the Crozer-Chester Medical Center Wednesday to protest service closures and to call out what they said are parent company Prospect Medical Holdings ‘s callous disregard for the patients and families in Delaware County.
The lunchtime informational picket organized by comes on the heels of extensive cuts in the four hospitals in the county.
Among the possible cuts are paramedic aid cars in a number of communities.
Prospect announced in April that unless the surrounding municipalities pay for the service, it will curtail — with no plan in place for dealing with the vacuum the decision will create —
the Advanced Life Support response vehicle emergency medical service, which consists of vehicles (called chase cars) staffed by paramedics
“You get rid of these cars in Delaware County, and you’re short-handing the entire system,” said CrozerChester Medical Center paramedic Kate Denney, NREMT-Pm at a rally following the picket. “You’re pulling paramedics from farther away, dangerously increasing response times, and ultimately crippling those systems. There’s a trickle-down effect to these decisions that is very scary for our community.”
Jeffery Witters, a paramedic supervisor at CrozerChester Medical Center and the vice president of the Crozer-Chester Paramedics Association, said the closures will be disastrous.
“You can sugarcoat it any way you want to, but people are going to die from these decisions,” Witter said. “I got a call recently. I was the primary paramedic on the scene; it took me 17 minutes to get there, and I waited 35 minutes for an ambulance. You short-staff the whole region
by reducing EMS services in an area that is already in need of more service, not less, and people are going to die.”
Other closures the company announced in April include the Outpatient Substance Abuse Clinic at DCMH, The CCMC Inpatient Acute Substance Abuse/Addiction Unit, The CCMC Crisis Center and All mental health and substance use disorder treatment
outpatient services at the Community Campus in Chester
Crozer-Chester Medical Center nurse Peggy Malone, R.N., and president of the Crozer-Chester Nurses Association, said the need for these units are increasing.
. “Suicides are already up due to the pandemic. Overdoses are already up for the same reason. You shut down mental health services,
and incidents of violence will rise. Our police and our ERs will be overrun. Our county will be in chaos if what Prospect has planned is allowed.”
A number of Delaware County elected officials were on hand at the protest including state Sen. John Kane, D-9 of Birmingham, state Rep. David Delloso, D-162 of Ridley Park, state Rep. Mike Zabel, D-163 of Upper Darby,
state Rep. Leanne Krueger, D-161 of Nether Provicence, and county council members Dr. Monica Taylor and Richard Womack.
“Our community has been good to Crozer,” said Womack. “Crozer has been a part of this community for many years, and for Crozer to do what they’re doing — to walk out because of profit, not worry about the clinics, not worry about the people’s health,
not worry about our community — it’s despicable.”
At recent story in the Daily Times showed that Crozer Health received $72 million in federal aid during the pandemic.
A second informational picket is planned for next Wednesday at Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill, where numerous service closures were announced by Prospect this year.