Nurses Union Warns Of "Public Health Disaster"

Chris Lisinski | SHNS

Slamming an "impotent charade of oversight," the state's largest nurses union renewed its call for the Healey administration to prevent the closure of Carney Hospital and Nashoba Valley Medical Center after regulators said both facilities provide "essential service."

The Massachusetts Nurses Association once again aimed criticism at Gov. Maura Healey and her deputies for their repeated insistence they are unable to use state government's powers and resources to force the Steward-owned Carney and Nashoba facilities to remain open.

"After three hours of testimony from dozens of residents, first responders, policymakers and advocates from all segments of the community at a jam-packed public hearing last week, it was inevitable that [the Department of Public Health] would find that Carney is indeed an essential service for protecting the public health; yet as they have done in so many other instances, they claim they can't do anything to protect the public health from the loss of this vital service to a community of 122,000 people," MNA spokesperson David Schildmeier said in a statement.

DPH officials determined this week that Carney and Nashoba Valley Medical Center provide "essential service" to their communities. That decision does not empower the state to keep the facilities open, the department said, and instead requires Steward, which is looking to shutter the two facilities next week, to take additional steps to ease the transition.

Steward plans to close both hospitals around the end of the month after deciding that no bids submitted to take them over were sufficiently qualified. The bankrupt company is also in the process of selling the remainder of its Massachusetts hospitals, one of which -- St. Elizabeth's in Brighton -- the Healey administration plans to seize by eminent domain to facilitate a transfer.

"The finding in this case is even more ludicrous, given that it calls for extensive changes to Steward's closure plan, yet appears to allow the corporation to proceed with the closure in just eight days, in direct violation of its own requirement to provide 120 days' notice," Schildmeier said about Carney. "Instead [of] continuing to embarrass itself with this impotent charade of oversight, we join a growing number of policymakers calling for the Governor and the state to take bold steps to save Carney and Nashoba Valley Medical Center, including seizing the hospitals by eminent domain, as it has done with St. Elizabeth's Medical Center to prevent what will be a public health disaster if these hospitals are allowed to close."