Hospital workers ‘hopeful and relieved’ after state OKs ownership change

Union health care workers at Commonwealth Health’s Regional Hospital of Scranton and its Moses Taylor Hospital campus in the city are “hopeful and relieved” the state greenlit the nonprofit Tenor Health Foundation’s pending acquisition of the financially struggling facilities many feared would close if the deal collapsed.

The state Department of Health confirmed Wednesday it approved Tenor’s change-of-ownership applications to acquire and operate the Scranton hospitals and Commonwealth’s Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in Luzerne County. In the wake of that news, Corinne Cianfichi, an occupational therapist and chapter president of the SEIU Healthcare PA union representing about 800 Regional and Moses Taylor workers, said in a statement they “finally have clarity on a direction for the next chapter of this hospital and our future.”

“Through tough working conditions, fear and anxiety, we stuck by our patients’ side because we believe deeply in providing quality care for our community,” she said. “Our community stuck by our side as well, and we are so grateful for them and the elected officials who made this deal happen. Together with our community and government leaders, we advocated tirelessly and relentlessly through our union to save Regional.”

That advocacy intensified after a prior acquisition attempt by another nonprofit collapsed in late 2024 and continued through 2025, with stakeholders working on multiple fronts to help facilitate a new deal and a collection of local nonprofits and foundations providing millions of dollars in stopgap funding to keep services running and staff paid at Regional and Moses Taylor in the intervening time. Union workers and others stressed the impact potential closures would have on lives and livelihoods, and the strain they’d put on the region’s remaining health systems, hospitals and emergency departments.

The pending completion of the Tenor transaction enabled by the state’s ownership-change approval alleviates those fears.

A spokeswoman for Community Health Systems Inc., Commonwealth Health’s Tennessee-based parent company, said it and Tenor will work to finalize the transaction “as quickly and as smoothly as possible.”

Cianfichi said Tenor agreed to honor workers’ union contract “so we can continue to have a strong voice to advocate for our patients and our coworkers.”

“We expect Tenor to work hard and invest resources, and we will work hard to take care of our patients and make our hospital successful,” she said in the statement. “We look forward to working with Tenor to preserve and expand a full range of services and good, family sustaining jobs, so we can provide the quality healthcare our community deserves.”

Local elected officials also hope to see Tenor invest in the hospitals and their workforces, but aren’t naive about the challenges the next owner will inherit. State Rep. Bridget Kosierowski, D-114, Waverly Twp., is realistic about the headwinds hospitals here and elsewhere face, from reductions in federal reimbursements to uninsured individuals relying on emergency departments for primary care.

“I am happy that we have a change-of-ownership approval from the Department of Health under (Gov.) Shapiro’s administration, however I am eyes wide open that Tenor has a great challenge ahead of them to retain and recruit and keep these doors open in this financially stressful time for health care,” she said Thursday. “Health care is not a luxury, it’s a lifeline, and especially to our rural and underserved communities, so I’m going to continue to advocate for policies that strengthen our health care system, support our workforce and ensure that Pennsylvanians have the access that they deserve. But, that being said, it is going to be incredibly challenging when people across the country realize how much health insurance costs them and how much … our physicians and hospitals struggle with reimbursement rates.”

Kosierowski, a longtime nurse who lauded the Regional and Moses Taylor workers, emerged as a chief advocate of saving the hospitals. She and other local officials have raised concern about changes at the federal level — including steep Medicaid cuts approved as part of President Donald Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) and the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that made health insurance more affordable for many — in that context.

Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti did so in a broader statement where she expressed gratitude to the Shapiro administration, state and federal partners, the community foundations that supported the Scranton hospitals in the form of “crucial stopgap funding” and the “SEIU and Commonwealth Health System staff members whose commitment and advocacy helped make this outcome possible.” The state’s approval of the Tenor ownership change means the local hospitals will remain open, she said.

“In the face of devastating Medicaid cuts and reduced federal funding for healthcare across the Commonwealth, I’m proud that our community came together to advocate for an outcome that will keep our hospitals open for the patients who depend on them for lifesaving care every single day, and that hundreds of hospital staff will remain in the jobs they love,” Cognetti said. “Now the even harder work begins, which includes standing up governance structures that put transparency and accountability at the forefront, and keep community healthcare leaders and experts included in decision-making.”

Cognetti is running for Congress with a goal of unseating U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, R-8, Dallas Twp., in this year’s midterm elections. Bresnahan was one of two local officials, Kosierowski being the other, mentioned by name Wednesday in a Tenor statement announcing state approval for the hospital acquisitions.

He was “relentless in his efforts to ensure access to healthcare in the region remains strong,” it said.

The first-term Republican congressman has taken significant heat for his support of Trump’s OBBBA, given its cuts and changes to Medicaid, but also recently bucked GOP leadership and joined Democrats to force a House vote on extending the ACA subsidies. While House-passed legislation to restore for three years subsidies that expired at the end of 2025 is highly unlikely to clear the GOP-controlled Senate, efforts to achieve a bipartisan compromise in the upper chamber remain ongoing.

Bresnahan also recently joined Trump and others at a roundtable touting the Rural Health Transformation Fund created by the OBBBA, a $50 billion initiative to bolster rural health care that will deliver funding directly to states over a five-year period and — according to the nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization KFF — “could offset a little over a third (37%) of the estimated cuts to federal Medicaid spending in rural areas.”

It remains to be seen if or how any of Pennsylvania’s share of the funding, including $193 million in year one, might benefit the Commonwealth Health hospitals under Tenor’s ownership. But Bresnahan said Thursday the pending acquisitions avert the closures of Regional and Moses Taylor, an unwanted outcome that was “dangerously close” and would have amounted to a “massive shock loss” for the region in terms of health care access and jobs.

“I mean that emergency room sees over 33,000 people a year,” he said of Regional while also noting the babies delivered at the Moses Taylor campus that currently houses Lackawanna County’s lone neonatal intensive care unit. “And … within the Geisinger ecosystem, they didn’t have the infrastructure to be able to absorb that level of patient load without making serious modifications to their structure.”

Bresnahan, too, wants to see Tenor make investments in hospital workforces, service lines and the facilities themselves.

“First and foremost we want to make sure that the jobs and the employees and the people that are affiliated with the hospital that provide for their families remain employed, and I think it would be great if we could continue to bring back some of those services that had unfortunately been lost over decay and time (with) CHS not making the necessary investments into the infrastructure,” he said. “I would like to see some capital improvements to the facilities. … But first and foremost it’s going to be about all the care providers. It’s going to be about the physicians. It’s going to be about our nurses. It’s going to be about our medical assistants. It’s going to be everybody down to the security team, to the custodial teams, and making sure that they remain employed and also have a forecast — because I think they have just been living in a world of uncertainty for far too long.”

It’s not clear when Tenor might officially complete the transaction.