Union Hospital Merges with Delaware’s ChristianaCare, After Struggle to Save Local Care

NEWS ANALYSIS Cecil County’s community hospital, the more than century-old Union Hospital in Elkton, is merging with ChristianaCare in Delaware, bringing the struggling local hospital into the fold of the nationally recognized teaching hospital and trauma center that dominates health care in the First State. While many questions remain about the practicalities of the merger, the fact that the local hospital will survive is a welcome outcome that had been in some doubt for several years. Union will lose its independence and much of its identity in the agreement, which was announced Thursday (1/2/2020) after officially taking effect on January 1. The 72-bed local hospital will be officially known as ChristianaCare-Union Hospital and its Elkton real estate, which includes medical office space, will be dubbed “ChristianaCare-Cecil County.” Union, and its parent organization Affinity Health Alliance, now joins the Delaware institution which operates its main hospital in Newark, DE, Wilmington Hospital in that city, and the ChristianaCare emergency hospital in Middletown, DE. The Middletown operation, opened in 2013 with a $34 million, 36,500 square foot emergency medical services facility, is utilized by many southern Cecil County residents. Christiana officials said in a written statement that the process of fully integrating the […]