Pottstown Hospital Nurses Decry Layoffs: 'Seen This Story Before'

POTTSTOWN, PA — The union representing hundreds of nurses at Pottstown Hospital says that the mass layoffs announced this week will cause significant harm to healthcare in the community.

Tower Health, the owner of Pottstown Hospital along with Phoenixville and Reading hospitals, said that they were cutting 160 jobs in order to fund an expansion of the emergency department and other improvements. It comes just months after another 130 jobs were eliminated last fall.

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"Tower can say whatever they want in a statement, but let's be honest here," RN Lori Domin, a longtime Pottstown Hospital nurse and president of the Pottstown Nurses United union, said in a statement. "This is a reduction of services that is going to lead to a reduction of care and more difficulty accessing care for this community."

Pottstown Hospital Announces Mass Layoffs

The cuts amount to more than a 40 percent reduction in the nurse workforce at the hospital, where before the cuts, nurses had already said they were understaffed.

"Medical surgical beds are being cut, the entire orthopedic unit is being closed," Domin added. "There are already patients who are held in the emergency department waiting for a bed because there are not enough staff on the floors to care for them. With these cuts, where are those emergency patients going to go?"

The move comes just days after Tower Health announced a new affiliation agreement with Jefferson Health which they claimed was aimed at "Expanding access to high quality care." The timing of the two moves so close to one another did not go unnoticed by the union.

"Unfortunately, we at the bedside have seen this story before," says RN Maureen May, the President of PASNAP, said in a statement. "The step by step dismantling of patient services that led to the closure of the once four-hospital Crozer Health system, then Suburban Hospital. Tower may say that their intent is to keep the hospital open, but their actions speak louder than their words."

The job cuts will go into effect on Sept. 28, according to the WARN notice filed with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor.

Tower Health also owns Phoenixville Hospital, Reading Hospital, and St. Christopher's Hospital for Children.