Nurses and advocates from across the state called on Gov. Muara Healey to take executive action to keep Carney Hospital and Nashoba Valley Medical Center open amid bankruptcy proceedings for Steward Health Care.
The two facilities are on track to close by Saturday after Steward Health Care declared bankruptcy earlier this year, a situation that was in part fueled by the company’s decision to sell the land under their hospitals to investors and private equity groups.
Elaine Graves, a nurse at Carney, said she and her colleagues have given their “blood, sweat, and tears” to the community in Dorchester, particularly during Steward’s ownership of the hospital.
Even before the bankruptcy, Graves said, nurses had been “mourning the state of greed” of Steward and the need for action by state officials to protect the hospital and its community.
“Now, we are both angered and saddened by the state’s decision to abandon our hospital and our community and here we are once again to support our community, to plead with the governor and the state to make a different decision and to save our hospital,” she said at a rally on the steps of the State House Wednesday morning.
Healey announced tentative agreements earlier this month to hand over control of four hospitals run by Steward to new owners, including by attempting to seize control of St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton through eminent domain.
But the governor said Carney and Nashoba Valley Medical Center would remain on their paths to closure because no one stepped forward to buy the facilities.
“That’s why those hospitals are set to close because of Steward, because what Steward did in running them to the ground. So it’s an incredibly upsetting reality,” the first-term Democrat previously said.
Advocates have since criticized the governor and her top lieutenants for not attempting to use the eminent domain process to take control of the two facilities in Dorchester and Ayer in the same way state officials are trying to seize St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center.
At the rally, Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune said she is looking for “reasonable solutions” to keep Carney Hospital open and warned that the city’s EMS Department has “no idea what it is going to do now.”
“We are asking for the bare minimum, and we know that it’s possible,” she said. “We didn’t work hard enough, to be frank, to get qualified bidders, and we let Steward do whatever they want.”
A spokesperson for Boston EMS said without Carney Hospital, patients will be transported to other medical facilities in the city, some of which are already experiencing capacity issues.
“This is likely to result in increased transport times for patients traveling farther to the nearest hospital as well as prolonged turnaround times for ambulances. With some of the most highly skilled EMTs and Paramedics, we remain committed to clinical excellence and are prepared to adjust, adding resources, to continue to provide compassionate care and timely delivery of lifesaving care,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Boston EMS transported more than 91,000 patients in 2023 with just over 6,300 taken to Carney, according to the agency. Almost three-quarters of the patients transported to the hospital were between the ages of 23 and 65.
The agency plans to add an additional ambulance that will be staffed 24/7 to increase coverage in Dorchester.
Steward Health Care notified state officials at the end of July that 1,243 employees were set to be laid off when the two hospitals close at the end of August. Members of the state’s Congressional delegation and others have demanded the company pay severance to those workers.
Michelle Travers, a nurse at Nashoba Valley Medical Center, said the bankruptcy proceedings over the past several months have left employees facing an “exhausting and distressing ordeal awaiting decisions that will significantly affect our employees.”
Hospitals like Nashoba Valley Medical Center, she said, are often the first and only point of access to essential medical services for patients in the area.
“The potential closure of Nashoba will have devastating consequences for the health of our community. The closure of Nashoba would force residents in surrounding towns to travel significant distances for emergency care,” she said.
