First responders advised CBS Information that the closure final November of the almost 100-year-old Delaware County Memorial Hospital in suburban Philadelphia has strained the world’s well being care system.
“Everybody feels it,” veteran paramedic Jim McCans advised CBS Information chief medical correspondent Dr. Jonathan LaPook. “That basically hit exhausting.”
The Pennsylvania Division of Well being closed the hospital after studying the power was understaffed by its proprietor, Prospect Medical Holdings. The Los Angeles-based firm has been one of many targets of an ongoing CBS Information investigation within the position personal fairness performed within the collapse of hospitals serving a few of America’s most weak residents.
McCans, who’s the top of EMS for Haverford Township, stated the impression of the closure has prolonged past the almost 85,000 residents the hospital as soon as served. He stated close by emergency rooms are on lockdown and shared knowledge exhibiting his division’s name quantity elevated about 25 % this 12 months as a result of it covers extra territory. His staff of 16 medical doctors now has to spend extra time getting sufferers to hospitals farther afield, he stated.
“EMS is [taking] get longer to the place they must be, get to dump their affected person, after which get again to their precinct for longer,” McCans stated. “So that every one compounds the issue.”
With the assistance of personal fairness traders, Prospect Medical acquired Delaware County Memorial in 2016 as a part of its buy of Crozer-Keystone Well being System, a Pennsylvania non-profit healthcare system that was at risk of failing.
In a press launch on the time of the acquisition, Prospect Medical pledged that its investments within the healthcare system would “considerably enhance Crozer-Keystone amenities’ capacity to modernize, entice extra sufferers and develop service to the group.” But two of the 4 hospitals within the well being system — now known as Crozer Well being — closed final 12 months, together with Delaware County Memorial.
Prospect Medical Holdings advised CBS Information in an announcement that it “was not notified by EMS or any state company that there was a big enhance in EMS response occasions or that different native hospitals have been considerably affected by the closure” of the Delaware County Memorial.
The corporate cited latest feedback by Christine Reuther, a Delaware County official, to recommend that the county had carried out a preliminary examine of the county’s EMS system that “confirmed no change in response occasions as a result of closure” of the county’s EMS system. ‘hospital.
When contacted by CBS Information, Reuther stated Prospect took “her remarks out of context” and “there are not any outcomes, preliminary or in any other case.” She stated the county took steps after the shutdown to vary the way it dispatches ambulance providers, which might cut back response occasions however enhance caseload and protection areas for first responders like McCans.
In January, audio from the 911 dispatch obtained by CBS Information revealed that two taking pictures victims who arrived on the closed Delaware County Memorial emergency room have been to be taken by ambulance to Lakeneau Medical Middle, almost 5 miles away.
Lots of the close by hospitals, together with Lankenau, are run by the non-profit Principal Line Well being. Information supplied by the corporate reveals that month-to-month emergency room visits at its hospitals elevated about 14 % between January 2022, when Prospect Medical started slicing providers to the Delaware County Memorial, and January 2023.
McCans stated the hospital closure has left some Delaware County residents “stranded from well being care.”
“It harm them, it would proceed to harm them,” McCans stated. “A few of them will price their lives.”
“Hospital programs are in bother”
In December, CBS Information reported on a collection of economic strikes made by Prospect Medical administration and its personal fairness backers that legally siphoned cash out of hospital operations earlier than it shut down. The primary transfer was in 2018, when the house owners of Prospect Medical took out a $1.12 billion mortgage and paid themselves a $457 million dividend.
Prospect Medical CEO Sam Lee took residence about $90 million, a sum confirmed to CBS Information by Rhode Island Lawyer Basic Peter Neronha, who investigated the corporate’s funds in 2019 over a proposed company settlement.
“It will be like a home-owner going to the financial institution, taking out a $100,000 mortgage, and as a substitute of utilizing it to put money into his property or pay for his youngsters to go to varsity, what they did was simply put it of their pocket as money.” ‘ Neronha advised CBS Information in December.
In December and once more for this report, Lee declined requests to be interviewed.
After paying the $457 million dividend, the house owners of Prospect Medical then offered the Pennsylvania Well being Care System land and buildings to a Birmingham, Alabama-based firm known as Medical Properties Belief.
“Principally, they purchased the property from Prospect and leased it to Prospect,” stated Rob Simone, an analyst at a Connecticut-based analysis agency known as Hedgeye.
The publicly traded Medical Properties Belief has bought the actual property of almost 200 US hospitals, usually in low-income communities. The agency’s chief government, Ed Aldag, declined an interview, however a agency spokesman stated in an announcement that Medical Properties Belief is “a trusted and dedicated useful resource for hospital capital and has been proud to allow hospital operators to unlock the worth of their actual property property” to pay for enhancements.
“They acknowledged a chance during the last decade and it was personal fairness companies trying to promote hospital programs,” Simone stated.
Simone has suggested shoppers to wager towards Medical Properties Belief by shorting its shares, though he stated neither he nor Hedgeye trades the corporate. He stated the corporate has saddled lots of his hospitals with unsustainable rents.
“Hospital programs are struggling and in some circumstances particular person hospitals are closing, which could be very problematic,” Simone stated, pointing to the Delaware County Memorial for instance. Prospect Medical owes $35 million yearly in lease to the Medical Properties Belief for the well being care system.
The spokesperson for the Medical Properties Belief stated it had “no involvement” within the operational choices of the amenities it owns and denied that any hospital of their portfolio “has ever failed or lowered providers as a consequence of an incapacity to pay lease , as a result of the lease constitutes solely a small proportion of hospital prices”.
Nonetheless, throughout a March earnings name with traders, a Medical Properties Belief government acknowledged that Prospect Medical had not paid its full lease this 12 months.
Through the name, Medical Properties Belief CEO Edward Aldag stated, “Prospect administration is targeted on an aggressive cost-cutting measure that ought to allow them to return the Pennsylvania market to profitability in roughly 12 to 18 months.” .
“It has been a tragic day”
CBS Information was on the scene the day final November when the Delaware County Memorial closed its doorways for good, pulling residents away from the emergency room. 28-year-old Cecilia Vizuete was having bother breastfeeding her 1-year-old daughter as a consequence of a breast an infection.
“They stated I ought to look Google Maps for an additional hospital,” Vizuete stated.
Contained in the Delaware County Memorial, the usually crowded corridors and affected person rooms have been empty aside from just a few nurses assigned to wash up the place.
“It was a tragic day,” stated emergency room nurse Angela Neopolitano, who labored on the hospital for 41 years and was president of the native union. “I will be sincere, I cried.”
When the hospital closed, Prospect Medical pledged to save lots of the power by turning it into what it known as “a desperately wanted 100-patient facility for these in want of behavioral well being and different providers.”
In an announcement final week, the corporate stated the Delaware County Memorial’s transition to a behavioral well being hospital “could have the best impression on the well being and well-being of our group” and stated its lease obligation to of the Medical Properties Belief was not an element within the resolution. The corporate didn’t reply to a query in regards to the standing of the transition.
McCans stated he believes Prospect Medical’s monetary strikes are morally and ethically incorrect.
“You have discovered a method to information your self by creating wealth and leaving these individuals within the lurch,” McCans stated. “That is what they did.”
