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Boston City Council calls for declaration of a public-health emergency over Carney's closure
By adamg on Wed, 08/07/2024 - 2:19pm
FitzGerald calls for emergency declaration.
The City Council today urged the Boston Public Health Commission and Gov. Healey to declare a public-health emergency as a tool to keeping Carney Hospital in Dorchester open beyond the end of the month, when its bankrupt owner plans to close it.
Councilor John FitzGerald, one of the sponsors of the measure said an emergency declaration would help keep Steward open long enough to find a buyer willing to keep it open. And he said that despite Steward's assertions, there are groups that could and would keep the hospital open.
"There are folks interested in operating the Carney as a profitable, successful hospital that will provide care to our neighbors," he said. He did not provide details.
FitzGerald and Councilor Ed Flynn (South Boston, South End, Chinatown, Downtown) said the Carney's closing will be a crushing blow for Dorchester and for the city's Haitian and Vietnamese communities, who depend on it for care. But they warned its planned end will make it harder for people across the city to get emergency care - as the 30,000 people who now go to the Carney in an emergency will flow into the city's other hospitals.
Flynn said he's particularly worried about the impact on Boston Medical Center, which he said is already overloaded.
"Steward should never have been allowed to get away with what they did and it's time to put a foot down and say no more," Councilor Liz Breadon, whose district includes the Steward-owned St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, for which Steward says it has a buyer, said. Breadon and Councilor Ruthzee Louijeune both said what's happening is proof private capital should never be allowed near health care.
The council voted 12-0-1 for the resolution.
Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson (Roxbury) cast the one "present" vote. She said she agrees with the basic idea but that because the resolution calls for action by the BPHC, Mayor Wu and the governor, she said she was not comfortable voting without first holding a conversation with them.
Councilor Brian Worrell (Dorchester) said he would also prefer gathering with the other officials to figure out the next steps in saving the process.
FitzGerald responded that there's just no time for the typical meetings and hearings the council would normally hold. A bankruptcy judge in Texas yesterday approved shutting down Carney as part of Steward's bankruptcy. And the state has scheduled a hearing at Dorchester's Florian Hall on Aug. 13 to talk about the closure.
"They've got us over a barrel, to be quite honest," he said, referring to Steward.
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 City Council resolution on Carney | 289.35 KB |
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Comments
I am reminded of Animal House
I am reminded of Animal House, "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part!"
DPH has little control here, either
This is entirely in the hands of a bankruptcy court in Texas.
yup
And its clear the owners of Steward Healthcare just don't care what the law says. They've repeatedly thumbed their nose at local politicians. See the "120 day notice" as an example of this.
THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT LOCAL POLITICS OR LAWS
They will do as they please, and their lawyers will just fight it out in court. And they will win, of course.. or if they lose, its pocket change they will have to pay in fines.
Emergency rooms in Boston are full
If EMS is called to transport a patient to an emergency room can they take the patient to Milton or South Shore Hospital?
Eh...
Milton yes, South Shore no, unless it's a private company ambulance....for non 'emergencies'...
This is what they wanted.
This is what they wanted. They didnt care about the problems at the hospital 2 years ago, last year, 6 months ago, or last month when the closure was announced. Now it is politically convenient, so everyone's hearts are suddenly crying out.
Who is this "they"
Who is this "they" that you're pointing a finger at? Be specific. Bring receipts.
Confused
How can the city require the hospital to stay open if the owners and a federal judge have already approved a closing?
More to the point
How does a price-opaque business that gets money from the government fail at all?
Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement
Isn't great for most things, but it allows for scale. That scale means you can treat the patients with private insurance profitably.
Looting by private equity.
Looting by private equity. They were burned down.
Exactly This ^
It's the old Bain Capital model. Buy stressed assets (Since Caritas sold to Cerberus then Cerberus to Steward) load them with debt, then burn em down for the share holders. We have a former governor that was a master at this model.
Ah yes
The Utah pig who regressively taxed the working middle class through his forced health insurance scheme.
Sickening to watch the left (expletive) him just for doing the bare-ass minimum in criticizing a pedophile sexual assailant as unfit for the Presidency.
They can't.
Steward doesn't even have to comply with the closure notification rules because they're in bankruptcy. Federal bankruptcy law has supremacy over state laws, so if Steward's creditors get closer to being made whole by not having to wait 120 days to close the hospital, the bankruptcy judge can allow them to close it.
The State could step in (as could the City) and use its power of eminent domain to buy the hospital to keep it open, but they'd have to pay market rate for the property and they'd also likely have to find some money to keep the hospital operating. If the reports are true about Carney being mostly empty apart from a few facilities (like the ED) then it probably is losing boatloads of money.
There sure is a lot of posturing going on here, but if the owner of the land has a long time horizon, all they really have to do is wait until some future public official blinks and lets them redevelop into a new residential community with 1000 units.
Eminent Domain isn't on the table
If it were then Nashoba would be a higher priority given regional coverage needs.
But it isn't a viable short-term option or even long-term option as the entire process is controlled by a federal judge in Texas and it is a complicated mess. This would also take multiple legislative actions, and isn't likely a high priority for the federal judge to entertain.
Massachusetts state government
Is controlled by a single political party.
If the political will at the state level existed to save those hospitals, a deal could have been done. The State could have even decided to participate as a bidder and/or worked with the company to be a stalking-horse bidder for the assets.
In reality, while I can see the need for an ED where Carney and Nashoba Valley are, there probably isn't a need for a full hospital in either location. It's probably more efficient to do a deal whereby some other institution operates a satellite ED and maybe some outpatient services at those locations.
"a deal could have been done"
With who? An out of state entity that is not in the least answerable to the Massachusetts state government? Tell me how that works.
An out-of-state entity
Doing business in MA isn't answerable to the MA government?
Tell me how that works.
Um
Kinda sounds like they're not doing business in MA any more. Not if they shut down all the hospitals they bought. So, maybe they dgaf.
The out-of-state entity
Which is most important now is the bankruptcy court judge. He gets to decide what happens to the Steward assets. If the State were to make an offer that would preserve the hospitals and provide at least comparable return to the Steward creditors, that's the deal which would get done.
Again, if the Public Health Commission still controlled BCH
Boston CITY Hospital, that is, instead of Menino handing it over to a punch of private interests in return for getting his name on a wing, we'd be in a different position.
The CITY hospital could have just expanded its personnel and infrastructure into Carney and established City Hospital South or whatever. Used eminent domain if necessary.
Instead you have the toothless City Council whining and pleading with Das Kapital, and that fool Flynn promising the hospital will be "profitable."
We rarely agree
But 100% on this.
The boat to save Carney (and other hospitals that have closed in the last decade or two) sailed in the 1990s.
Tbh, a lot of our good healthcare sailed away in the 80s and 90s when somewhere along the way 'for profit' enterprise decided to profit off of sick people.
Thats the problem. Hospitals and to a lesser extend healthcare in general have never made a profit.. most just break even. So why some "equity" firms thought they could make money out sick people is beyond me. Well of course, this after.. like all of these firms do... buy the business, suck out all the capital, cut expenses, cut employees, then wonder why the business is failing. They close said business and wait for bankruptcy court to give them the rest of their 'investment' money. Wash Rinse repeat on the next business. Just like a parasite.. keep sucking as much as they can and when they kill the host.. they just move on to another host and start to suck it dry too.
if we had healthcare stay as a 'not for profit' (or non-profit) PUBLIC SERVICE orgs.. we wouldn't be in this pickle today. Thanks Nixon, you slimeball.
Money would still be a problem
The City/BPHC would still have to come up with cash to pay the Steward bankruptcy estate, and they'd also need future budget money to cover its operation. I don't think Steward or its landlord are holding out for a real estate deal; they're selling St. E's as a functioning hospital and it's on much more valuable real estate IMO. But I could be wrong.
Just "expanding" into BCH South is not as simple as it sounds because the employees at BCH would presumably already have their hands full with their current patients. They'd really have to keep Carney running as a separate institution for an extended period until they could harmonize a bunch of things -- pay, IT systems, institutional processes, etc.
FitzGerald and Councilor Ed
Over the past two or three decades, had Carney's reputation improved among communities other than white Irish-American?
After the merger of Boston
After the merger of Boston University Medical Center Hospital and Boston City Hospital in 1996 African-American usage of Carney Hospital had an upsurge. I think it was a result of the gentrification that followed the African-American community from the South End though Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan.
Boston Medical Center was simply not considered a "Black" hospital anymore. Carney became the new choice