State officials continue to encourage people to seek care at Steward Health Care's eight Massachusetts hospitals despite the company's bankruptcy, but a doctor from a neighboring hospital said the message doesn't tell the whole story.
Since Steward filed for bankruptcy in Texas last week, Gov. Maura Healey and others have sought to make clear that the legal proceeding does not necessarily mean that anything has changed for patients, urging people to keep their appointments at Steward facilities and encouraging residents to seek emergency care at Steward hospitals without reservation.
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Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein told the Public Health Council on Thursday that the state's "consistent message to patients in the community has been and continues to be that all Steward hospitals in Massachusetts remain open, patients should keep up with their health care needs, maintain their appointments, screenings and tests."
But the chief of medical affairs at Lawrence General Hospital, which is near to Steward's Holy Family Hospital in Methuen and Haverhill Hospital in Haverhill, told the council that underneath the state's rhetoric "is a reality, which is that in spite of these hospitals remaining open, their level of intensity of care is clearly declining."
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"And that's a message that is not really advertised, but it is real. For the ones that are next door to them, we can see that vital support services -- not just having emergency room physicians and nurses, but you need to have orthopedics, neurosurgery, you need to have all of these other things to be able to care for these patients. So what we are finding is that they get in, they get evaluated, but then they get transferred out. And appropriately, because you don't want to admit them to a situation where they may not have an essential service," Dr. Eduardo Haddad, a council member, said. "I think it's important for the state to be aware of this and not, you know, understand that they are functioning at a full level of care, because the likelihood is that this is going to continue to decline."
Haddad's comments sparked a conversation about the capacity crunch that has stressed Massachusetts hospitals in recent years, and the fears that Steward closures -- or significant degradation of available services -- could put other hospitals under even greater pressure.
Goldstein said DPH monitors have been closely watching for staffing, capacity or other issues at Steward's hospitals, and said that team includes five regional "captains" who have been in touch with Steward hospitals as well as other nearby hospitals or community health centers "so that we can understand those changes in care and access that you're describing, Dr. Haddad."
"What we have learned from those conversations is that, at this moment, while there may be shifts in individuals that are providing care at one facility or another, the hospitals are still able to provide the care that they were previously providing," the commissioner said. "And I think it's really important for us to have that message out there because we don't want people with chest pain driving past the Holy Family campus to go someplace else. And we certainly don't want a pregnant person who is in active labor to drive past Good Samaritan Hospital, and to try to drive to South Shore Hospital or something else in the region."
