A judge’s stamp of approval this week on the sale of most Steward Health Care hospitals in Massachusetts means the focus can now shift to getting answers for the people affected by the company’s bankruptcy, a union leader said Thursday.
“Ralph de la Torre and Steward Health Care, their investing partners and all the CEOs involved need to be held accountable for their actions,” said Tim Foley, executive vice president of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. “Accountable to the communities in which their hospitals have closed and they’re trying to figure out what to do for health care access. Accountability to the patients who right now are trying to figure out where do they go to receive care, what do they do in case of emergency. And accountability for workers.”
Foley spoke at a Boston press conference where U.S. Sen. Ed Markey announced he wants to see the Senate bring contempt charges against Steward CEO de la Torre.
The Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted over the summer to issue a subpoena compelling de la Torre’s testimony at a Sept. 12 hearing into Steward’s bankruptcy.
Markey said de la Torre is refusing to appear at the hearing. It will now feature an empty chair reserved for the CEO, repeating a scene that played out when Markey and Warren held a similar hearing at the State House in April.
Markey, a Malden Democrat, said he’s talking to his colleagues about a committee vote recommending de la Torre be held in criminal or civil contempt, or both. If the committee takes such a vote, the matter would move to the full Senate.
“Contempt means that if he continues to refuse to appear before the committee, we will not stop until he answers for what he has done or is put behind bars,” Markey said. “But we will not stop there. Steward Health Care is not an exception. It is an example of a broader pattern of how corporate greed costs lives.”
A Steward spokesperson declined to comment on the senator’s interest in contempt charges.
Committee chair Sen. Bernie Sanders said he was “disappointed, but not surprised” that de la Torre wouldn’t testify, and ranking Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said defying a congressional subpoena “is consistent with ... a disregard for doing the right thing.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan joined Markey for the press conference.
“The truth is clear,” said Trahan, a Westford Democrat. “This crisis was created by those at the top, not by external factors. It is our duty to hold them accountable.”
Trahan’s district spans from north central Massachusetts, where Steward closed Nashoba Valley Medical Center at the end of August, to the Merrimack Valley, home of Steward’s Holy Family hospitals in Haverhill and Methuen.
A U.S. bankruptcy judge on Wednesday approved the sale of the Holy Family hospitals, St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Morton Hospital in Taunton, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton and St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton to a trio of new, not-for-profit operators.
Foley, of the health care workers’ union, told GBH News that he believes the new owners will invest in the hospitals, their workers and the surrounding communities.
“I think it’s going to mean that there’s going to be more investments and more focus on the plants themselves, the hospitals, investments in the capital that’s needed to ensure quality health care services, that there’ll be investment in workers and to rebuild the reputation within the communities,” he said. “These are new providers. It’s a new day.”
In addition to Nashoba Valley Medical Center, Steward also closed its Carney Hospital in Dorchester last Saturday.
Ellen MacInnis, a member of the Massachusetts Nurses Association Board of Directors, said that while she’s glad to see the work that’s been put into moving other Steward hospitals to new owners, the communities that rely on the Carney and Nashoba Valley “deserve a better shake.”
A registered nurse at St. Elizabeth’s, MacInnis suggested her concern is not so much who runs the facility but what resources they provide.
“I work in the 10th floor of a building served by six elevators. One of them is working right now,” she told GBH News. “Whatever, Jack the Ripper could show up, and if he was willing to get us supplies and fix the place, I would welcome him with open arms.”
