A financial crisis at Steward Health Care is prompting a new response from Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, who says the health care system should get out of the state and transfer the ownership of its hospitals.
Patients in Brockton, Massachusetts, are anxiously awaiting the fate of Steward Health Care as the organization grapples with a financial crisis.
Gov. Maura Healey said that Steward should transfer ownership of the hospitals and leave the state altogether.
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She's demanding Steward create an action plan to detail how they plan to address these financial woes, saying if they don't comply, the state will act by possibly freezing admissions to any of their nine hospitals in the state, closing beds and transferring patients to other hospitals.
In a three-page letter to Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre, she listed several demands, including ensuring safe staffing and supply levels, allowing the state Department of Public Health to put monitors in all of its locations and immediately disclose its financial records.
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Steward — a Texas-based health care system — reportedly owes $50 million in unpaid rent. Healey called on them to produce those financial documents by the end of the day this Friday.
"For years, you have refused to engage in the same level of basic transparency that every other system in the state offers by not releasing your audited financial statements," the governor wrote in the letter.
While the letter didn't say what consequences the health care system would face if it didn't comply, Healey Cced the acting U.S. attorney for Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office.
U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch will tour Good Samaritan on Wednesday. He's expected to be joined by Steward officials.
