When Gov. Maura Healey announced last Friday that the state would use eminent domain to help transition St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Brighton to a new owner, the news was perplexing to Audra Sprague.
Sprague has worked for 17 years as a nurse at Nashoba Valley Medical Center, which bankrupt Steward Health Care is planning to close at the end of the month.
“I was blown away,” Sprague said. “I felt betrayed because I was like, 'why not us?’”
Steward is moving forward with the sale of five of its Massachusetts hospitals, but has said it received no qualified bids for Nashoba Valley Medical Center or Carney Hospital in Dorchester. Staff and advocates for both hospitals have been calling on Healey to take steps to save the hospitals, but Healey has repeatedly said that there’s nothing the state can do to keep them open.
For Sprague and others hoping to avert the closures, the use of eminent domain at St. Elizabeth’s suggests the state has more power than its been willing to use.
“I’m glad that she’s doing something and actually like being verbal and making funding available for them,” Sprague said. “But that shows that there is funding available and that she can do the same thing for Nashoba.”
A similar show of support for Nashoba Valley Medical Center could help spur interest from bidders, Sprague suggested.
“Right now, nobody’s bid because they don’t know that there’s any support,” she said. “So, then the state’s got an out, because they can be like, 'sorry, we don’t have any bids.’ Well, we don’t have any bids because you never told anybody that you’d help them. Up until now they’ve only heard that you won’t help.”
The closure of Nashoba Valley Medical Center would leave residents without a nearby emergency room, Sprague said.
“It will be a catastrophe in our area,” she said. “There’s nothing to fill the gap. Urgent cares aren’t going to do it.”
State law requires hospitals to provide a 120-day notice before closing, but Steward announced plans to close the two hospitals in just a month.
Some advocates, like Kimberly Connors of the single-payer advocacy group Mass-Care, say the 120-day window is essential to provide enough time to attract a qualified bidder.
“We are calling on the legislature to release funds from the rainy day fund, to give a bridge loan for that 120 days so that we can find an operator or qualified bidder,” Connors said.
While Healey has maintained that the state cannot save Carney and Nashoba Valley without an independent operator to run them, Connors pointed out the state already owns and runs Lemuel Shattuck Hospital in Boston, Tewksbury Hospital, Pappas Rehabilitation Hospital for Children in Canton, and Western Mass Hospital in Westfield.
“There are other hospitals that the state runs. Why not these?” Connors asked.
