'Our patients need us': Employees, residents plead for Carney Hospital to be saved

Hundreds of health care workers, patients and community members gathered Tuesday night to demand that state officials take action to save Carney Hospital, a fixture in Boston for over a century, which is slated for closure by the end of the month.

Carney’s bankrupt owner, Steward Health Care, plans to close the hospital at the end of the month because it failed to receive viable bids from potential buyers. Steward is moving to shutter Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer for the same reason. A federal judge has already approved the closure plan.

But those who attended the packed public hearing down the road from Carney at Dorchester’s Florian Hall said their community needs the hospital. They sometimes stood and cheered as speakers called for the facility to remain open.

“Our patients need us,” said Maryanne Murphy, a 40-year employee of Carney Hospital, who works in the radiology department. “Our hospital saves lives. Our employees save lives.”

She and others warned that patients will wait longer for care if Carney closes — and are at risk of dying if they have to travel longer distances for care during a serious emergency.

“It’s not just Dorchester,” said Simone Smith, another longtime employee. “Our [emergency medical service] is going to suffer. Our clinics are going to suffer…. People are going to get hurt. People are going to die because somebody didn’t get to them.”

Already, many hospitals across the state are struggling to keep up with the numbers of patients coming to their emergency departments. That crowding could worsen when the hospital closes, as Carney's ER sees about 30,000 patients a year.

“It is impossible for me to accept that there is nothing to do and our hands are tied,” said City Councilor John FitzGerald. “Let’s keep the ER open, let’s have the psych beds, let’s do day surgery, let’s start with that. We might have to pare it down… but we can’t shut it down completely.”

Local patients have turned to Carney since it opened in the midst of the Civil War. But the hospital has struggled financially in more recent years, and it's been on the brink of closure before. In 2010, it was among a group of hospitals that the Archdiocese of Boston sought to save by selling them to the private-equity backed Steward.

The hospital serves people from diverse and working-class communities, including Dorchester and Mattapan.

Some have called on city and state officials to declare a state of emergency to keep Carney open. But Gov. Maura Healey’s administration has not taken this step. Healey told WBUR’s Radio Boston this week that “the question is the funding.”

Dr. Robbie Goldstein, the administration’s commissioner of public health, acknowledged at the hearing Tuesday that Carney’s impending closure feels “unfair.” But he said, “We cannot force a hospital to stay open — especially if doing so might risk the quality of care that’s delivered, or the safety of the patients.”

A Steward official, Dr. Octavio Diaz, told the crowd the closure is “deeply regrettable” and “also unavoidable.” He said Steward is working to keep primary care physicians and specialists in the neighborhood, even after the hospital closes on or around Aug. 31

“We now have begun the work of ensuring that all our patients are transferred or discharged safely,” said Diaz, who serves as president of Steward’s north region and oversees its Massachusetts hospitals. He was booed as he left the podium.

In plans filed with public officials, Steward said Carney's closure would include 83 medical and surgical beds, 19 intensive care beds, seven pediatric beds, 50 psychiatric beds and all ambulatory care services at the hospital.

More than 750 people are expected to lose their jobs.

Dallas-based Steward operates about 30 hospitals across eight states. The private, for-profit company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May after accumulating billions of dollars in debt, and later put its assets up for sale.

Steward is still negotiating deals to sell five Massachusetts hospitals: St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Morton Hospital in Taunton and Holy Family Hospital in Haverhill and Methuen.

Those deals have been complicated by the fact that Steward’s hospital properties are owned by two other firms, Medical Properties Trust and Macquarie Asset Management. Last week, those companies said they would hand the properties to their mortgage lender, Apollo Global Management, to facilitate sales.

Steward this week announced a deal to sell its physician group, Stewardship Health. Tennessee-based Rural Healthcare Group, which is owned by the private equity firm Kinderhook Industries, is planning to acquire the group, pending court and regulatory approvals.

A federal bankruptcy judge is scheduled to consider the sales of the physician group and the Massachusetts hospitals on Friday, though Steward could choose to postpone. The company has yet to announce the buyers for its Massachusetts hospitals.