Crozer Health’s owner is negotiating a new sale to a nonprofit. Its fate could be known next week.

A lawyer for Crozer Health’s owner, Prospect Medical Holdings, told a federal bankruptcy judge Wednesday that the for-profit company is in the early stages of negotiating an agreement to sell its two hospitals in Delaware County to an unnamed nonprofit.

A bankruptcy hearing scheduled for next Wednesday is key. At that hearing, Prospect will either ask for approval of the sale or to close Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Chester and Taylor Hospital in Ridley Park, William Curtin, of Sidley Austin LLP, told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stacey Jernigan.

“We are making good progress. Critical parties, both those that are known to your honor and those that hopefully will be known to your honor at some point in the very near future, have been working literally 24 hours a day on this,” Curtin told Jernigan.

The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office has been involved in the negotiations. “We are cautiously optimistic that we have a long-term plan,” Melissa Van Eck, a lawyer in the office, told Jernigan.

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Prospect, based in California, had already filed a motion on March 7 to close the hospitals on an expedited basis, possibly by March 14. But that didn’t happen, largely because state officials and others pressured the Foundation for Delaware County to provide $7 million for payroll though next Friday.

The judge asked if the foundation, which supports community health needs, is still part of the talks.

The foundation “is anticipated to be part of the long-term solution,” Curtin said, but “the foundation can’t run hospitals, so that’s the missing piece, and I think we’re much closer to filling that critical missing piece now than we were a week ago or even yesterday.”

During the hearing, the foundation’s attorney did not address the foundation’s ongoing role. “We’re anxious to hear about the long-term prospects,” said Scott Cousins, of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP.

Before the foundation provided its $7 million, an infusion of $20 million from Pennsylvania and Delaware County kept the facilities open under the management of an outside consultant starting late last month. State officials have been working to preserve jobs for Crozer’s 3,200 employees and health-care services in an area that doesn’t have other easily accessible options.

In a letter to Judge Jernigan Monday, Delaware County officials and state elected officials noted that the closure of Crozer would likely lead to collateral job losses at businesses that serve the hospitals and medical offices.

Crozer is Delaware County’s largest health-care system. It operates a trauma center, as well as a burn unit, and provides maternity services and behavioral health care. The next closest hospitals are Main Line Health’s Riddle Hospital near Media and Trinity Health Mercy Fitzgerald in Darby, both nearly 10 miles away by car.

Prospect filed for bankruptcy protection Jan. 11, with plans to keep paying workers at Crozer only through the end of that month. Officials from Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration, and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office have worked for more than a year on a plan to get Crozer into the hands of a new nonprofit that would be backed by major nonprofit health systems in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Those efforts have faltered because of a lack of funding to absorb Crozer’s losses and pay for upgrades of outdated buildings and equipment.