Carney Hospital — the only hospital in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston — closed its doors on Aug. 31 following a bankruptcy claim by the for-profit medical manager Steward Healthcare Group.
Steward has listed all of its hospitals in Massachusetts for sale after managers paid themselves millions of dollars instead of using their profits to pay the hospitals’ debts. The result is a massive healthcare crisis for Boston’s most vulnerable residents.
Governor Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu have publicly declared that they cannot do anything to save Carney. This is a boldfaced lie.
Workers and residents outraged over Steward’s greed
Workers organized with SEIU 1199 and the Massachusetts Nurses Association, as well as hundreds of other residents, patients, and healthcare workers, are demanding radical solutions. At a public hearing on Aug. 13 held by the Department of Public Health, Carney employees denounced Steward for putting their severance and PTO in limbo as Carney closes. Many Carney employees have worked at the hospital for over 20 years.
Healthcare workers made it clear that Steward has a long history of profit-driven negligence. Many community members highlighted Steward’s closure of Quincy Medical Center in 2014, in which Steward broke their contract with Massachusetts to keep the hospital open for 10 years. One resident said, “They strangled the hospital for two years, keeping doctors and patients out so that they could tell the [Department of Public Health] that volume is down. Exactly what they have been doing at Carney!”
The Attorney General and Governor did nothing to uphold the contract in 2014 and expected Carney to take care of Quincy’s patients. Now, Carney is closing and the current government has yet again failed to hold Steward accountable, enforcing the conditions for this medical crisis to continue without end.
Dorchester left in the dust
Boston is home to 20 hospitals and several medical schools, many of which are nationally renowned for the quality of research and care they provide. However, Boston’s biggest and most diverse neighborhood has long been excluded from the benefits of Boston’s medical scene.
Dorchester is already a “pharmacy desert”— a neighborhood with little to no direct access to essentials like diapers, baby formula, and pharmaceuticals. Eight Boston pharmacies from Dorchester to Beacon Hill have closed since 2020.
In January, community members protested the closure of the Walgreens on 416 Warren Street in Roxbury. The store was no longer earning enough profits to compete with larger companies like Amazon and Wal-Mart. This is simply capitalism at work: when profits drop, companies close down operations or declare bankruptcy as they see fit, and the working class is left in the dust.
A clear solution exists: put people over profits
The state government could easily use eminent domain to seize Carney Hospital and prevent it from closing. This is exactly what Healey’s administration plans to do for four other hospitals managed by Steward.
Healey refuses to use eminent domain for Carney because Steward claims there are no “qualified bidders” to purchase Carney from the government — meaning there are no buyers who would buy Carney for a price Steward is willing to accept. Boston Medical Center, which is purchasing some of Steward’s hospitals, refused to bid on Carney due to “years of underinvestment that would be hard, if not impossible, to reverse” at a profit.
The drive for profits has created other obstacles to a state takeover. But the reality is that these obstacles could be overcome if city and state leaders had the desire to do so.
The state has already allotted $80 million to give to the new private owners and operators of Steward Hospitals — a sum which could have been used to sustain Carney instead of supporting private profiteers. At the same time, Massachusetts is sitting on an $8 billion “rainy day” fund which could be used not only to save Carney but to invest in the hospital and improve its standard of care.
We need an entirely new system
Boston used to have mainly non-profit hospitals but that all changed in 2010 when State Attorney General Martha Coakley allowed the non-profit system to be bought by Steward Healthcare Group. Steward is indeed a greedy, ugly for-profit management group — but it is the for-profit politicians who created the conditions that allowed them to come to Dorchester and bleed the community.
Boston University professor of Health Law, Policy, and Reform, Alan Sager, wrote a seven-page letter to Martha Coakley advising against the sale. In the letter, Sager says, “But what if [the sale] actually has the effect of facilitating the closing of one or more of the hospitals? … It is wrong-headed, I think, to allow for-profit firms’ transient or spasmodic financial needs to determine which Massachusetts hospitals survive.”
This entire situation could have been avoided had city leaders listened to this warning and required hospitals to be run by the state for the people instead of for profit.
