Daley decries widening health care desert in Southeast Pennsylvania
Remaining systems like Lankenau are overwhelmed while private equity quits on patients
Rep. Mary Jo Daley June 11, 2025
HARRISBURG, June 11 – Private-equity health care mismanagement is quickly expanding a health care desert in Southeast Pennsylvania and stressing medical systems across Delaware, Chester, and Montgomery counties, said state Rep. Mary Jo Daley, D-Montgomery.
“House lawmakers have been sounding the alarm over failed private-equity management for years, and yet we still see executives and shareholders run off with pay days and bonuses after they close a hospital and leave patients to the wind,” said Daley, who co-chairs the bicameral Women’s Health Caucus in the General Assembly. “What’s more, the widening deserts in Delaware and Chester counties strain remaining systems here in Montgomery County and all over the region, affecting even more patients’ well-being.”
The closures have led to dangerously long ambulance rides and overcrowded emergency rooms in the remaining regional hospitals.
"At Lankenau Medical Center and across Main Line Health, we take pride in providing compassionate, high-quality care for everyone who comes through our doors,” Lankenau Medical Center President Katie Galbraith said. “However, it wasn't right that patients had to experience increased wait times at our hospital in 2022 when Delaware County Memorial Hospital closed, and it's not right that patients in need of a trauma center from the Chester area now have to travel to Lankenau or elsewhere because their neighborhood trauma center, Crozer-Chester, has closed. Private equity ownership has taken a serious toll on our region."
Other nearby hospitals, including Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby and Bryn Mawr Hospital have experienced increased emergency room visits because of closures. For instance, Mercy Fitzgerald reported a 20% rise in emergency department visits, approximately 20 additional patients daily.
Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland was a 300-bed tertiary-care teaching hospital. It was the largest hospital in Delaware County and a regional medical campus for Drexel University College of Medicine. The hospital was closed permanently last month following a protracted bankruptcy process.
Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill ceased its emergency department operations in 2022, marking a significant reduction in health care services for the region.
In late 2021 and early 2022, Tower Health closed Jennersville Hospital in West Grove and Brandywine Hospital in Caln Township. These closures left large areas of southern and northern Chester County without emergency services.
Over the years, in response, state lawmakers have introduced legislation to reform the hospital closure process, aiming to increase the notice period from 90 to 180 days, require more community input, and establish clearer standards for closures.
The latest legislation, introduced by state Sen. Tim Kearney and state Rep. Lisa Borowski, is designed to prevent closures like the one at Crozer-Chester. It would prohibit for-profit and investor-owned health care entities from sales or mergers “against public interest” without the state Attorney General’s approval. It passed in a 121-82 bipartisan vote Tuesday.
Daley said that Senate Republican leadership must act swiftly and concur in H.B. 1460.
“I emphatically support House Bill 1460 to stop the looting of our hospitals,” Daley said. “Across our commonwealth, private equity firms are draining critical resources from our communities and making it impossible for people to access care. Health care should be about helping sick people, not boosting profits. Our bill would strengthen oversight, accountability and public input when risk arises with hospital, nursing home and hospice sales, mergers or acquisitions by private equity firms.
“Health care is a basic human right, and those who tear it down need to be held responsible for their actions, not profit from them.”
House lawmakers rallied in Harrisburg this week over the issue, sending a statewide message that new laws are needed now in Pennsylvania.