‘Life Or Death Situation’: Questions Remain As Hahnemann University Hospital Announces Transfer Of Residents, Fellows To Tower Health

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Residents and fellows at Hahnemann University Hospital have a better understanding of where they will finish out their education when the hospital shuts down. On Wednesday, Hahnemann and Drexel University announced the residents can transfer to the hospitals operated by Tower Health.

Five hundred residents are impacted by this. Some said off-camera they are of course concerned and nervous about what will happen next. Their patients are nervous, too.

Mary Alice Johnson and her son come to Hahnemann three times a week for dialysis treatments, but when the hospital closes, she’ll have to go somewhere else, but she doesn’t know where.

“My health will be in jeopardy. That’s my main concern,” she said.

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“Where will we have to go? How far will we have to go? And who will be her overseer as far as her medications, dialysis treatment because we haven’t heard anything yet,” Mary Alice’s son, Erik Johnson, said.

The hospital and Drexel University’s School of Medicine announced the residents at the hospital will be able to transfer to Tower Health. The health system operates hospitals in Reading, Chestnut Hill, Pottstown, Brandywine, Jennersville and Phoenixville.

The move still needs to be approved. In the meantime, hospital staff says the wind-down is affecting everyone inside.

“It’s sad, it’s really sad everyone is holding on to the slightest of hope. If you give up, it’s done. So we’re trying not to give up,” said Ava Anderson, who works at the hospital.

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Tower Health is also looking to hire the faculty who are teaching the residents. For Erik Johnson and his mother, it’s all about her health.

“This is a life or death situation we’re talking about here,” Erik Johnson said.

Demonstrators have been protesting the closure of Hahnemann University Hospital since the announcement last month. Many of the students at the schools said they were told not to talk to the media about the situation.

CBS3’s Howard Monroe reports.