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BOSTON — Attorney General Andrea Campbell promised Tuesday to hold Steward Health Care executives accountable, as the hospital system financially flounders and leaves uncertainty around continued care for patients.
The health system has been in the news over the past month after reports surfaced that the company that owns nine hospitals in Massachusetts is in significant debt and has not been paying rent or vendors. State officials also say the for-profit hospital system has not been reporting financial information to the state — required under state law — that could have tipped them off to the severity of the situation before it became dire.
Steward owns St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, and Hawthorn Medical Associates in Dartmouth is affiliated with Steward Health Care.
Gov. Maura Healey is claiming that financial documents Steward passed along last week (following the governor’s demands) have not been audited and are untrustworthy; the health provider claims it has submitted the information required by law.
A Steward spokesperson said the company provided audited financial statements through 2021.
“We do not yet have audited statements for 2022. However, as soon as they are completed, we will turn them over to the state,” the spokesperson said in a statement to State House News Service. “To date, we have given a voluminous amount of financial material and documentation, and we continue to work with state officials to provide information. We are unsure of the source of confusion, but we are intent on clearing it up and coming to [a] resolution.”
The governor called last week for Steward to pull out of the state entirely, and has recently issued strong rebukes of its CEO Ralph de la Torre and called Steward’s hospital system a “house of cards.”
“There will be accountability, there will be reckoning, no doubt. But in the meantime, my job is to work with others to make sure there’s an orderly transition here of this hospital system to other entities,” Healey said on GBH’s Boston Public Radio on Tuesday.
Asked about criminal charges for Steward executives, Healey did not shoot down the question.
“Well, it certainly raises a lot of questions and it raises any number of questions about the lawfulness of actions,” Healey said, adding that it is not her job as governor to determine criminality.
She said she was concerned about the transfers of land between Steward Health Care and its landlord.
“[Steward] took over these entities that were operating in communities around the state. They then proceeded to sell the buildings and the land to these private equity concerns and lenders. And then those guys actually leased back the building and the land to Steward, and Steward paid rent. So there’s a real question about whether that was the right rent, or whether that was overvalued. And with that money, we know then money went out to Ralph de la Torre. So, you don’t have to be a lawyer to have real questions about what happened,” the governor said.
BPR hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan also asked Campbell, who also had an appearance on their show Tuesday, about the escalating situation at Steward hospitals.
Campbell said her office “plays a significant role” in holding Steward accountable, but wouldn’t divulge too many details as “it is an active and ongoing matter.”
“I can tell the public, I am concerned about the lack of transparency, and we will continue to push them to produce documents not only for the administration, but also for our purposes,” she said. “We will absolutely hold them accountable, not only for anything that transpired to get us to this place by Steward, but even looking forward, how do we make sure that this just doesn’t happen again in Massachusetts?”
Healey told Boston Public Radio that she wouldn’t oppose another for-profit health care system coming in to buy the hospitals that she hopes Steward will vacate.
“No, what we want to do though, is make sure that the entity taking over these hospitals is going to do right by patients and do right by workers,” the governor said.
Campbell said ensuring continued access to health care for Steward patients is her number one priority, then she will pursue some course of accountability.
“We are seeking — actively seeking — information from Steward lenders, anyone who is involved in this crisis, gathering all of that information,” she said. “And as you know, that takes time. We will review that and we will proceed as quickly as we can with any level of accountability.”
Neither Healey nor Campbell offered any details on possible paths or plans to hold Steward accountable.
A spokesperson for Steward did not respond to a request for comment in response to Campbell and Healey’s remarks.
The New Bedford Light contracts with the State House News Service to provide coverage of statewide and regional stories.