POTTSTOWN PA – Nurses and healthcare workers at Pottstown Hospital are scheduled to demonstrate their concern Monday morning (Nov. 17, 2025) for what their representatives call “alarming service cuts and massive layoffs” announced Nov. 7 by hospital owner Tower Health.
Hospital employees, designates of several Pottstown community organizations, and politicians and public officials are expected to gather at 9 a.m. for a “press conference” at the corner of High Street and Armand Hammer Boulevard. They are encouraging the public to also attend.
Tower Health, in an e-mail, notified employees of its plans to lay off 350 workers (about 3% of the health system’s 11,000-person staff, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal) due to financial pressures. Of those, the greatest number of job losses – 131 administrative and clinical positions – would occur at Pottstown.
Tower also reported that, by mid-January, it intended to close Pottstown Hospital’s intensive care unit, medical-surgical step-down unit, and endoscopy center. Access to those facilities would still be available at its hospitals in Phoenixville and Reading, Tower Health noted. Additionally, it said services would be reduced at its cancer outpatient care center, but that radiation oncology services there would continue.
A Friday media release distributed by e-mail said Pottstown nurses and healthcare workers “will call on Tower leadership to immediately halt the planned service cuts.” They will ask the company to “engage in good-faith discussions to explore alternatives that preserve essential services, protect jobs, and safeguard patient care for the community.”
Behind the Proposed Cuts
Tower Health incurred significant financial losses over several years, including during the COVID-19 epidemic, following failed attempts by earlier leadership to expand its market reach. To address the problem, later decisions were made to sell assets, close other facilities, and make staff cuts.
In fiscal 2025, the company reported its first operating profit since 2018, primarily due to gains at Reading Hospital. It also said it lost millions of dollars at Pottstown and Phoenixville.
In a statement on the pending layoffs, Tower Health says its decisions “were not made lightly,” nor are they about simply reducing costs. “They were made out of necessity to ensure that we can chart our own pathway forward and continue serving our communities.”
Claims of ‘Reckless’ and ‘Discriminatory’ Action
Those planning to gather Monday outside Pottstown Hospital strongly disagree.
“At a time when communities need more access to care, not less, slashing services and laying off skilled caregivers isn’t just reckless, it’s cruel,” says Maureen May, RN, who serves as president of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals. The union represents 275 nurses at Pottstown, some of whom will be affected by the planned cuts.
“These service cuts will deepen healthcare disparities, force patients to travel farther for essential treatment, and leave caregivers and families in crisis. This community deserves better,” May adds.
A Google Maps query indicates Phoenixville Hospital is a roughly 14-mile or 21-minute drive from Pottstown, or 96 minutes of travel via public bus. Tower’s Reading Hospital is about a 21-mile or 31 minute drive from Pottstown, or a more than 3-hour bus trip.
Also critical of Tower Health’s proposal is Johnny Corson, president of the Pottstown NAACP and a cancer patient at Pottstown Hospital.
“It’s my opinion … that this move is discriminatory to the vulnerable people of this population and discriminatory to the people of Pottstown,” he says. “I’m upset that they’re giving us just 60 days to find ways to get treatment. This is life and death. Just imagine the toll this is going to take mentally.”
“Stress is one of the worst things that a cancer patient can deal with,” Corson notes. “Tower, you just put undue stress on a lot of sick people in this community who relied on you, who counted on you, and who believed in you.”
“Our members will not stand by silently as this hospital turns its back on the people it exists to serve,” according to May. “We will fight, alongside our community, to keep critical care in Pottstown.”
Photos by Travels With The Post
Our local news reporting includes Healthy Living articles about healthcare, wellness, medical providers, and medical services within, or that affect residents of, Montgomery, Berks, and Chester PA counties. Find more health-related articles here. Also, see and follow the Pottstown Health page on Facebook.
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