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Massachusetts Governor Maura T. Healey ’92 is under increasing pressure to address the financial crisis facing Steward Health Care, which operates nine hospitals statewide including the Brighton-based St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center.
Healey will speak to the Public Health Council Wednesday morning about the crisis, her spokesperson Karissa Hand wrote in an email, amid mounting questions about whether Steward can find a buyer to assume ownership of some of its hospitals.
A Boston Globe investigation last month revealed the health care system was tens of millions behind on rent, making some of its hospitals vulnerable to service reductions or closures.
If St. Elizabeth’s were to close, it could have immense ramifications for both Allston’s economy and the health of its residents, said Anna Leslie, executive director of the Allston Brighton Health Collaborative.
“Not only is it the largest healthcare provider in the neighborhood, it's the largest employer in the neighborhood,” Leslie said.
In an email to The Crimson, a spokesperson for Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07 wrote that city officials are “in contact with the state and unions and are monitoring the situation closely.”
Paul Hattis, a former member of the state Attorney General’s Health Policy Commission, said Healey’s administration has several options at its disposal, although at the moment, “the ball seems to be in Steward’s court.” Those options include a court-appointed receivership, inspection of Steward’s hospitals, or helping finance the sale of the hospitals to other regional healthcare groups.
The state could also bail out the company, a possibility Healey has publicly dismissed. In a statement on Feb. 2, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services announced they “are conducting daily on-site monitoring visits” at St. Elizabeth’s and two other hospitals to evaluate day-to-day staffing, supplies, and patient count.
EOHHS also said they were working to determine the patient capacity of other health care providers in the state, suggesting the administration is taking steps to prepare for the possibility of hospital closures.
On Feb. 2, Steward claimed to have secured enough financing to keep all its Massachusetts hospitals open while it looks for new owners of some of its hospitals. Still, some prominent state lawmakers including House Speaker Ron Mariano, a Quincy Democrat, remain suspicious of the health care giant, which has not released the details of its bridge funding plan.
Leslie said the crisis at Steward could have been foreseen well in advance.
St. Elizabeth’s had failed to pay $150,000 it owed to the ABHC as part of a non-binding community benefits agreement, Leslie said in an interview Tuesday morning. Later on Tuesday, St. Elizabeth paid the $50,000 it owed the ABHC for 2023, Leslie wrote in an email Tuesday night.
“It’s troubling that it got this far,” Leslie said. “There were a lot of warning signs directly from staff, from community partners like us.”
A spokesperson for St. Elizabeth’s did not respond to a request for comment. In an email, Caroline Whitehouse, a spokesperson for the EOHHS wrote that Healey’s administration had been in communication with Steward over its finances for months.
Hattis said Steward has exhibited a pattern of failing to disclose information about its finances to the state. Steward sued the state Center for Health Information and Analysis in 2016 to prevent the handover of their financial statements.
By that point, the health care giant had been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for refusing to disclose required financial data to the state.
In Boston, the City Council will hold a hearing on the Steward crisis on Thursday, Feb. 22, which will include testimony from members of the public.
—Staff writer Jina H. Choe can be reached at jina.choe@thecrimson.com.
—Staff writer Jack R. Trapanick can be reached at jack.trapanick@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @jackrtrapanick.
