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A federal judge in Texas is set to decide whether to approve the sale of St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton to Boston Medical Center in a Wednesday hearing following the bankruptcy of its owner, Steward Health Care.
After months of tenuous negotiations to prevent the closure of the nine hospitals in the Steward chain, including St. Elizabeth’s, Massachusetts Gov. Maura T. Healey ’92 announced a deal last month to seize the property by eminent domain before transferring its operations to Boston Medical Center.
Under the deal, Steward would sell St. Elizabeth’s operating license to BMC as part of the Texas-based bankruptcy proceedings.
The transfer would put the beleaguered hospital back under the control of a non-profit healthcare group — more than one decade after for-profit Steward Health Care took control of the institution, landed billions of dollars in debt, and then fell behind on its regular payments.
In recent years, the hospital has seen critical equipment repossessed, infrastructure fall into disrepair, and staff leave in numbers. The Boston Globe reported in January that a woman died after giving birth at St. Elizabeth’s last year because the device needed to save her had been repossessed by the provider.
A spokesperson for Steward declined to comment for this story.
For both workers and patients, St. Elizabeth’s takeover by BMC could mean a return to normalcy after sitting in limbo for most of this year. In April, affiliates of the hospital and local elected officials rallied to demand the hospital stay open and to protest its management by a for-profit entity.
The drawn-out and highly publicized crisis under Steward has caused St. Elizabeth to lose patients, according to two nurses at the hospital. But the attrition of both patients and staff “has definitely slowed with the news that we would be taken over by a real hospital organization, not the frat house that is Steward,” said Ellen MacInnis, one of the nurses, who also sits on the Massachusetts Nursing Association’s Board of Directors.
MacInnis said many at the hospital felt “largely relieved” by the deal to transfer St. Elizabeth’s to BMC.
“We’ve always wanted to be a nonprofit,” she added.
Before 2010, St. Elizabeth’s was part of a chain of Catholic-run hospitals in Massachusetts. As a term of its purchase, Steward agreed to continue running the hospital in accordance with “ethical and religious directives for Catholic healthcare institutions,” including restrictions on abortion procedures.
With the state seizure of the hospital, it is not clear whether BMC will continue to be bound by that condition, according to Paul A. Hattis, who has worked across health care institutions in Boston.
BMC, which is not religiously affiliated, currently offers a full range of abortion care and contraceptive services on its South End campus. The BMC website states that the group is committed “to protecting reproductive justice” and ensuring patients’ rights to have or not have a child.
A spokesperson for BMC declined to answer questions about St. Elizabeth’s current stipulation that it abide by Catholic standards. In a statement Friday, the group wrote that they were “pleased to have reached an agreement” to take over the operations of St. Elizabeth’s.
“As our attention turns towards finalizing the transaction, integration planning, and efforts to support both organizations, we await the resolution of the eminent domain process between the Commonwealth and Apollo on the St. Elizabeth’s campus,” they wrote.
As Steward’s bankruptcy proceedings have unfolded in Texas — where the company is headquartered — BMC has promised to pay $140 million total to buy another Steward hospital in Brockton and to pay for the company’s license to operate St. Elizabeth, though the property itself will be held by the state.
The proceedings have become ensnared in a disagreement over how much Apollo Management, an asset management firm which controls the property St. Elizabeth’s sits on, should be compensated when the state seizes the hospital. The state has proposed $4.5 million — higher than the best bid for the property, but far below its tax valuation.
The sale of five other Steward hospitals across the state are also up for approval in the ruling.
—Staff writer Jack R. Trapanick can be reached at jack.trapanick@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @jackrtrapanick.
