Talks on how to save Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Taylor Hospital expected to continue Thursday
The next bankruptcy hearing is scheduled for Thursday at 4 p.m.
Talks on how to meet Prospect Medical Holdings’ demand for $9 million to keep Crozer-Chester Medical Center and Taylor Hospital open for another two weeks are expected to continue Thursday.
“We have been assured a closure notice will not be issued today,” the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office said in a statement Wednesday after two meetings involving Prospect, government officials, and others.
A lawyer for the bankrupt Prospect Medical told a judge Tuesday that Prospect would start closing the two Delaware County hospitals at 12 a.m. Thursday if $9 million wasn’t provided to cover an upcoming payroll.
Since the for-profit California company filed for bankruptcy in January, the health system has received an infusion of $40 million to pay the system’s 3,200 employees. Prospect has said in court that it doesn’t have the money to do so and has repeatedly said it will close the hospitals if more money doesn’t come in.
During Tuesday’s bankruptcy hearing, a lawyer for Prospect said that the $9 million Prospect was demanding was just the start. More money would be needed to develop a long-term solution, if an entity emerged to acquire the facilities.
The office of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and the state attorney general have been working on a plan for at least 18 months to get Crozer back under nonprofit ownership, as it was before Prospect bought it in 2016.
But Crozer’s losses and liabilities are too daunting for any existing nonprofit to acquire the system. Efforts to form a new nonprofit backed by a consortium of local nonprofit health systems have not been successful.