Advocates fight to prevent closing of Holy Family (2024)

HAVERHILL — Community advocates along with members of the Massachusetts Nursing Association, local physicians, the mayor and City Council are calling on the Healey administration to commit to preserving all Steward hospitals in the state, including Holy Family Hospital in Haverhill, which they say is at risk of closing.

During a City Council meeting Tuesday, David Schildmeier, spokesman for the MNA, said its members are increasingly concerned about public statements as well as private conversations with persons with firsthand knowledge of internal deliberations at the state level that some Steward hospitals may be considered expendable, including the one in Haverhill.

“The state’s contingency plan that we heard about is a doomsday plan for the worst scenario,” he said, referring to the possibility that local patients would be bused to other hospitals in the event Steward hospitals close. “Hopefully there will be buyers found by the end of the bankruptcy process but in the event there aren’t buyers found, we believe the state has a role to play in ensuring the survival of these hospitals.”

Holy Family supporters will gather at 6:15 p.m., May 30, to learn how to prevent the hospital’s closure. The Merrimack Valley Project will host a community discussion at the Haverhill Public Library on what can be done to save Holy Family in Haverhill. Register online at bit.ly/HolyFamilyMeeting.

Steward Health Care, a for-profit hospital network with 31 hospitals across eight states, including Holy Family Hospital in Methuen and Haverhill and seven others in Massachusetts, announced on May 6 that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.

That morning, Gov. Maura Healey held a press conference during which she said she’s long advocated for Steward to leave Massachusetts “based on the greed and despicable conduct of their CEO and their management team in Dallas.”

Steward Health Care System has been facing significant financial insecurities in addition to concerns around medical concerns, which have been the topic of conversation on the local, state and federal levels since the beginning of the year.

Schildmeier told The Eagle-Tribune that the bankruptcy court gave Steward five weeks to find a buyer or partner to transfer their hospitals to.

“What our concern is at the end of that process if they have not found anyone willing to take them on, what is the state going to do to ensure the survival of these hospitals?” he said. “At this time there has been no commitment stated and no contingency plan put in place that the state will not allow these hospitals to close.”

Julio Mejia, community organizer for the Merrimack Valley Project in Lawrence and a Lawrence resident, told the City Council Tuesday night that he was born at Holy Family in Haverhill and has family in the city.

He said the closing of Holy Family would create a public health crisis of “immense proportions” and would strip away access to health care, especially for those who cannot travel to obtain health care.

Mejia read testimony from Sandra Carriker of Haverhill, who said that on April 1 she thought she was having a stroke but did not trust the care she would receive at Holy Family in Haverhill after hearing recent news reports of financial difficulties, a lack of supplies and not paying staff on time.

So instead Carriker drove to Winchester Hospital and was quickly evaluated and transported to Beth Israel in Boston.

“Thankfully I have fully recovered and I feel strongly that it is imperative to have a local hospital that we can trust to deliver accurate and timely care and one that has a solid financial foundation,” Carriker said in her testimony.

Mejia asked the council to take a stand alongside advocates in an effort to save Holy Family Haverhill, then introduced several guest speakers.

Dana Simon, MNA’s director of strategic campaigns for Steward hospitals, said that with increasing frequency, people within the highest levels of Gov. Healey’s administration are saying it may not be all that important to worry about Haverhill’s hospital surviving.

“There are three hospitals they are saying that about, the Carney Hospital in Dorchester, the Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, and Haverhill,” he said, suggesting that politically, to the administration, it may not be all that important for these three hospitals to survive.

Simon said it’s important for the City Council to tell state officials that it is not politically, morally or ethically acceptable for any of these hospitals to close.

Holy Family Hospital registered nurse and MNA member Tamra Danis-MacLeod of Haverhill said the city needs a hospital to care for its 68,000 residents, noting the city has had a hospital since 1884.

“I call on you, as fellow guardians of our city, to throw any political Hail Mary you can muster or think of before it’s too late,” she said. “Please do anything and everything within your power to convince the governor that a hospital in Haverhill matters.

“Steward is leaving Massachusetts and sailing away on that big ridiculous yacht,” Danis-MacLeod added in reference to Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre having purchased a $40 million yacht in May 2021 at a time when Steward’s debts were mounting. “Our city needs you to convince the governor to find us a lifeboat.”

Dr. Tong Yan of Lawrence, a resident physician who cares for patients at Lawrence General Hospital and Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, said the Merrimack Valley is in a patient capacity crisis.

“There are simply not enough beds for the number of patients we have and that is a current reality with Holy Family in Haverhill open,” he said, adding that the closure of Holy Family would be catastrophic for the communities, for the patients, and for the health care workers of the entire Merrimack Valley.”

He said that if Holy Family in Haverhill closed, Holy Family Methuen and Lawrence General Hospital would be forced to take on the additional patient load.

“There is no additional capacity,” he said. “These facilities are already overwhelmed.”

Councilor Ralph Basiliere said announcements by Steward officials who claimed some of the company’s financial problems were rooted in insufficient Medicare and Medicaid reimbursem*nts are not the real problem.

“I’m calling it BS and I’m calling it tonight,” he said. “The problem here is greed.”

Mayor Melinda Barrett reminded the council that earlier in the year she referred to Steward’s finances as a “ponzi scheme” and it appears to be so.

“We cannot be the collateral damage of this horrible operation Steward has run,” she said.

“I urge you to write to our legislative delegation as they are that much closer to discussion with the governor and the House and Senate.”

The council in a 10-0 vote (Councilor Colin LePage absent) agreed to send a letter to the governor, the attorney general, Haverhill’s legislative delegation and the secretary of health and human services in support of saving Holy Family Hospital.

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