Trust violated by Doylestown Health

Doylestown Health’s decision to sell the Pine Run retirement community to the highest bidder violates the trust between the hospital and the community. Pine Run residents made an irreversible decision to use their life savings to move into a nonprofit retirement community. The reputation of the hospital and the record of community service by the Village Improvement Association attracted the residents. Their trust in the VIA is broken by the plan to sell Pine Run and use the profits from the sale to alleviate the hospital’s financial challenges.

Pine Run was marketed as a part of the hospital with community service and not corporate profits the core mission. Selling Pine Run and using the profits from the sale to help the hospital’s financial position exploits the trust placed in the hospital by residents who thought their future lives would be protected by a nonprofit community organization. The hospital will extract profits taken from the residents whose purchases and ongoing monthly payments are the basis of the retirement community’s strong financial position. The buyer will increase the cost to residents and make cuts in staffing and services in order to maintain the facility and make a profit for shareholders. The hospital will win, the new owners will win but the residents will be the losers.

Doylestown Health must find a different solution to its financial problems that does not violate the trust that the retirement residents placed in the hospital when they decided to make a final move into Pine Run.

Bruce Katsiff,  Philadelphia

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