Some Pennsylvania hospitals say closures and service reductions within Springfield, Pa.-based Crozer Health and West Reading, Pa.-based Tower Health have led to overrun emergency departments and other capacity strain at their facilities, NPR affiliate WHYY News reported June 7.
Radnor Township, Pa.-based Main Line Health's CEO, Jack Lynch, said the system's four hospitals have been operating on high patient volume alert, in part due to closures of Tower Health's Jennersville Hospital and Brandywine Hospital. Those hospitals closed in December and January, respectively.
Mr. Lynch said Main Line Health's Paoli (Pa.) Hospital "for the last six months, for the most part, has been full."
"One hundred percent of our beds are occupied, and we're boarding patients in the emergency room — which means patients that are ready to be admitted are waiting in the emergency room for a bed to be opened up upstairs," he said, adding it's not COVID-19 that is overrunning the ED.
Mr. Lynch said as of June 3, there were 40 patients hospitalized within Main Line Health because of COVID-19.
"We're drawing patients north of Paoli from people that historically may have gone to Jennersville or Brandywine and are looking for care at Paoli," he said.
He linked a 16 percent spike in ED visits at Main Line Health's Riddle Hospital in Media, Pa., to service shutdowns within Crozer.
Some hospitals within Newtown Square, Pa.-based Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic and Philadelphia-based Penn Medicine are experiencing similar issues. Some of the affected systems have added beds and hired more staff to handle the increase in volume.
A spokesperson for Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic, which operates Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby, Pa., shared the following statement with WHYY News:
"Having expected many of these regional closures and service reductions, Mercy Fitzgerald has taken steps over the last few months to prepare for the larger role we now have in providing care to those in our community. For example, in our emergency department, we went from delivering no babies, as Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital does not have an OB unit, to several deliveries over the last couple months."