MNA: Steward Healthcare Crisis Events for Week of Sept. 2nd

BOSTON, Sept. 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- 

WEDNESDAY, September 4 at 11 a.m. (ET) -- Bankruptcy Court in Houston to hold a hearing to Approve Sale of 5 Hospitals

The hearing scheduled before Judge Christopher Lopez is to review and approve asset purchase agreements negotiated between Steward Healthcare, their lender and the Commonwealth, which include the purchase of Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton by Boston Medical Center, Holy Family Hospitals in Haverhill and Methuen by Lawrence General Hospital, Morton Hospital in Taunton and Saint Anne's Hospital in Fall River by Lifespan (located in Providence RI).  The state is also taking St. Elizabeth's Medical Center by eminent domain, with a plan to transition the facility to Boston Medical Center.
Link to listen to hearing: https://www.gotomeet.me/JudgeLopez; Phone is 832-917-1510; 590153.

Thursday, September 5 at 7 p.m. – Progressive Mass. Forum: "Steward and the Future of Healthcare in Massachusetts"

Progressive Mass will host a panel discussion about the Steward Health Care bankruptcy crisis and what it means for the future of health care in Massachusetts. Panelists include Paul Hattis, senior fellow at the Lown Institute; Katie Murphy, RN, president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association; Alan Sager, director of the health reform program at BU School of Public Health; and Bill Walczak, founder of Codman Square Health Center. Enid Eckstein of JP Progressives moderates.  Click here to register for this virtual forum. 

MNA opposition to the closure of Carney Hospital and Nashoba Valley Medical Center continues, decries DPH statement that impacted communities need to "imagine a new future for healthcare" as the state fails to act to preserve access to essential acute care services; calls UMass Memorial proposal to replace Nashoba with urgent care center woefully insufficient.

The MNA continues to promote efforts by local public officials, the state and potential bidders to find a way to reopen both Carney Hospital and Nashoba Valley Medical Center as full-service hospitals to avoid a public health disaster.  "We reject the DPH Commissioner's recent statement that these communities should accept the loss of their hospitals, and 'imagine a new future' for health care in their community," said MNA President Katie Murphy, RN.  "As I testified to DPH at their recent public hearings on the closure, the only safe alternative to closing these hospitals is NOT TO CLOSE THESE HOSPITALS." 

The MNA also rejects the idea proposed by UMass Memorial Healthcare and the Healey administration, which would be to replace Nashoba Valley Medical Center with an urgent care center. 

"We flatly reject this idea. This is not a solution to this crisis and will not address what the community, local officials, first responders, physicians and nurses testified to at the DPH public hearing last week, which is that the 155,000 residents currently served by a full-service hospital deserve a full-service hospital.  An urgent care center can't provide emergency care or acute level care and can't replace 20 desperately needed psychiatric beds. If this plan was accepted, we would still be forcing desperately ill patients to travel longer distances for care, and those patients would still be adding to the already overcrowded emergency departments in surrounding communities, thus compromising the care for patients throughout Central Massachusetts," said Murphy. 

Editors Note:  For reporters looking to speak with nurses at the Steward-owned facilities represented by MNA (which includes all the hospitals except for St. Anne's) contact David Schildmeier at [email protected].

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Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 25,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

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SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association