Pottstown Hospital Staff Cut As Tower Health Lays Off 350 Employees

POTTSTOWN, PA — Pottstown Hospital's staff has been cut after their owners, Tower Health, announced some 350 layoffs over the weekend.

Pottstown Hospital will also lose its intensive care unit, the McGlinn Cancer Institute, and its endoscopy center, officials said. A total of 131 of 350 cuts are at Pottstown, the Philadelphia Business Journal reports, marking a major reduction in the hospital's staff.

State Rep. Joe Ciresi called the move "worrisome" and said it left "many unanswered questions" about the future of the community.

"The Pottstown region needs and deserves a quality hospital with adequate staffing levels," Ciresi said. "We need to do everything possible to maintain Pottstown Hospital as a viable institution that serves the medical needs of our region’s patients. Their dedicated nurses and staff provide emergency and intensive care, cancer treatment, outpatient endoscopy, and much more. Our local economy and community would struggle to absorb another major layoff."

Tower Health, which also owns Phoenixville Hospital, Reading Hospital, and St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, had just come to an agreement with the union representing nurses in August.

At the time, both sides said the new contract, which avoided a strike, prioritized recruitment and retention of nurses. Keeping nurses long-term is vital to improving care, the union said.

“When hospitals struggle to recruit and retain healthcare workers, it’s patients who feel the consequences,” PASNAP President Maureen May, a longtime NICU nurse at Temple University Hospital, said in August.

Before the agreement between the union and Tower in August, both sides had been engaged in months of contentious negotiations.

Details of the new contract, including the specific amount of raises and changes in staffing, were not made public.

According to the union, Tower also spent at least $400,000 on union-busting consultants at both Pottstown Hospital and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children over a four-month period in 2023 and 2024. These consultants were paid somewhere between $2,500 and $3,500 per day, the union said.

A spokesperson for Tower Health told Patch there were "inaccuracies" in information shared by the union publicly, but did not specify what they took issue with.