The embattled CEO of Steward Health Care is stepping down from the company, his spokesperson confirmed Saturday.
Dr. Ralph de la Torre is a former heart surgeon who climbed the career ladder to become founder and CEO of the now struggling for-profit health care company. He has overseen a network of some 30 hospitals around the country, but the Texas-based company's troubled recent history has drawn scrutiny from elected officials in New England, where some of its hospitals are located.
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De la Torre's spokesperson said the decision to separate is amicable.
"Dr. de la Torre urges continued focus on this mission and believes Steward’s financial challenges put a much-needed spotlight on Massachusetts’s ongoing failure to fix its healthcare structure and the inequities in its state system," the statement reads.
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De la Torre has faced intense scrutiny over his actions and alleged greed, which many say led to the company's current bankruptcy crisis and devastating impacts for its hospitals and patients.
Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said earlier this month that Congress “will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America.”
Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Ed Markey said Saturday that stepping down wasn't enough.
"This resignation comes too late for the workers, patients, and communities that Mr. de Torre harmed and abandoned,” Markey said in a statement. “He has extracted hundreds of millions from emergency departments, operating rooms, and intensive care units to buy luxury property, expensive vacations, and yachts, all while patients suffered and died and workers and hospitals went unresourced. As a physician and CEO of Steward, de la Torre knew the cost of his greed and mismanagement, and he allowed it to rot the financial security of an entire hospital system anyway."
De la Torre's resignation is effective Oct. 1.
Earlier this week, a U.S. Senate committee investigating the situation voted to hold de la Torre in contempt for failing to testify before a Senate panel. De la Torre did not appear before it despite being issued a subpoena. The resolution refers the matter to a federal prosecutor.
A spokesperson for de la Torre defended that decision, saying his client was exercising his Fifth Amendment rights.
