The employees of Carney Hospital who gathered in the rain Monday morning were not content to hear politicians just criticize those responsible for Steward Health Care’s financial meltdown and the decision announced last week to shutter the hospital, along with Nashoba Valley Medical Center.
They wanted to know what was being done to stop the closure.
As local leaders and members of the state’s congressional delegation dragged Steward, the hospital’s owner, and its CEO through the mud at a press conference in front of the hospital, employees and others in the crowd called out impatiently.
“We know that already,” some kept saying. “What’s the plan?”
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu began her comments by calling out, “Can you hear us, Steward Health Care?” But as she finished her comments, one employee called out in reply.
“With all due respect, we are not Steward Health. We are Carney Hospital,” he yelled. “We are not here for rhetoric. We are here for a plan!” he called out to cheers from the crowd.
State Senator Nick Collins was next to take the mic and he laid out some of the possibilities, noting that the announced plan to close by August 31 would violate a state law requiring 120 days notice.
“There’s a couple of steps that can be taken,” Collins said. “And that’s not allowing for the expedited closure of Carney Hospital, which is before the Department of Public Health. Second, support legislation that’s before the legislature currently to give the Department of Public Health receivership power. That can be done. [And] provide funding to keep Carney open with enough time to provide for a qualified bidder... I support any and all — including extraordinary — action in the form of a state of emergency at the state and city level to keep Carney open,” Collins said.
Senator Ed Markey came to Monday’s event with his own list.
“First, I am demanding that the court mandate that Steward Health Care comply with its legal requirements for the hospital closure,” Markey said. “They must engage in the full and robust process that includes community and worker notice and participation. Second, I am calling on the court to reduce and restructure the hospital leases with Medical Properties Trusts that are tying these hospitals to unaffordable rent every single day. And third, I am calling upon the private equity and real estate creditors to Steward to direct any revenue from the hospital sales towards the Commonwealth’s health care system.”
Among the workers there was Franklin Pena, who has been a housekeeper at Carney for 17 years. He described himself as “heartbroken” about news of the closure.
“This hospital is a very good hospital to the neighborhood. It’s like a family thing,” Pena said, adding that he was staying optimistic it wouldn’t close. “I believe in my heart it [will stay] open. I need my job.”
Katie Murphy, president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, said the closure would affect 240 nurses at Carney.
“The nurses and health care professionals who have held the line throughout this crisis are here today to call on Mayor Wu, Governor Healey, House Speaker Mariano and Senate President Spilka to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure the continued operation of these hospitals, including a declaration of public health emergency to protect Carney Hospital,” Murphy said at the press conference.
Murphy also stressed the need to enforce the state law requiring 120 days notice to provide more time to explore all options.
Speaking to reporters at the State House on Monday, Governor Maura Healey suggested the state is unable to save Carney Hospital.
“It’s Steward’s decision to close these hospitals,” Healey said. “There’s nothing that the state can do — that I can do, that I have the power to do — to keep that from happening. But I’ve also said from the beginning that we are focused on health care, delivery of health care to patients, protecting jobs, protecting the stability of the market. We’ve had a lot of conversations. We continue to be working to save five hospitals, to make sure that we’re doing all that we can for our communities.”
The state is providing $30 million that Healey described as an “advance on some Medicaid funding” to help those five other Steward hospitals have a “smooth transition to new ownership.”
After the press conference, Mayor Wu said the city’s ability to act is also limited.
“The hardest part here is that really, there is no — there are such limited circumstances where a public entity can force a private company to keep operating when they are at the verge of bankruptcy, and that is why that process exists,” Wu said. “And then once you are in that process, there are very rigidly prescribed steps by the court about what can happen ... At the city level, we don’t have that many tools to regulate health care organizations. We have the tools of our building code and zoning code.”
Wu said the city will make it clear that those building and zoning codes would make it “exceptionally difficult” to redevelop the property into housing or some other for-profit purpose.
