Governor Healey Demands Financial Transparency and Patient Safety from Steward Health Care

Governor Healey Demands Financial Transparency and Patient Safety from Steward Health Care:

Calls for CEO de la Torre to ensure safe staffing, allow for increased monitoring, and be more responsive

Boston, MA -- Governor Healey is today demanding that Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre produce financial records to the state that are required of other health care systems, but that Steward has refused to submit for years. This information would provide critical insight into where Steward is prioritizing its resources across the country and whether it chose to put profits over patient care. Steward’s refusal to provide basic levels of transparency over the years has hidden important information about the health system’s financial stability and hindered the state’s ability to take preventive steps to protect access to care. 

“For years, you have refused to engage in the same level of basic transparency that every other system in Massachusetts offers by not releasing your audited financial statements,” wrote Governor Healey. “Your continued refusal to do so, particularly at this moment, is irresponsible and an affront to the patients, workers, and communities that the Steward hospitals serve. It also leads to a further breakdown in trust and creates a major roadblock to our ability to work together to resolve this effectively.” 

Governor Healey called on de la Torre to take several immediate steps to protect access to care at his facilities, including: 

1. Ensure safe staffing and appropriate supply levels at each one of Steward’s facilities in Massachusetts. The state’s Department of Public Health (DPH) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have been onsite in all of Steward’s hospitals in response to patient safety events. If appropriate staffing and supply levels cannot be met, the state will take all actions necessary – in consultation with hospital leadership – to protect patients, including freezing admissions, closing beds, canceling procedures, and transferring patients to other hospitals.    

2. Allow for increased monitoring. DPH will be expanding monitoring activities across all Steward hospitals in Massachusetts. The state expects full collaboration and compliance from Dr. De la Torre and Steward management, as well as protection and support for employees who have come forward to protect patients.  

3. Immediately disclose financial documents. Dr. De la Torre has represented to the state that he is committed to Steward’s patients and the staff who have cared for them over the past 14 years, including throughout the pandemic. But Steward has not been forthcoming, truthful or responsive about what’s happening with their financial status, operating plans, and contingency strategies. Navigating this acute crisis, which is of Steward’s making, without complete transparency and real-time information, harms the state’s ability to protect patients, our workforce and our state. 

In 2017, then-Attorney General Healey represented the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) in litigation with Steward Health care over their refusal to submit financial information to the state. Last year, a Suffolk Superior Court judge ruled that CHIA has authority to demand Steward’s financial statements, but the case remains under appeal. 

Read the Governor’s full letter here.