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Mass. Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh
Alison Kuznitz | SHNS
More than a month after the Norwood Hospital license expired, lawmakers will start accepting written testimony on two identical proposals that sought to preserve care at four affiliated outpatient clinics abandoned by Steward Health Care.
The Joint Committee on Health Care Financing at 1 p.m. Wednesday will open up feedback on legislation (H 5097 / S 2979) from Rep. John Rogers and Sen. Michael Rush that directed the Department of Public Health to extend the license in order to maintain services at outpatient clinics in Norwood and Foxborough. The committee will accept testimony "on any bill up until such is acted on," according to the newly-posted hearing notice.
The proposals, filed in October, didn't get a public hearing before the license tethered to Norwood Hospital -- a former Steward facility that was being rebuilt after catastrophic flooding in 2020 -- expired Nov. 5. All of the satellite clinics were expected to close, but two Norwood Hospital Cancer Care Centers remain open and continue to serve patients after Brown University Health stepped in.
Rush and Rogers have said they are still searching for a path to reopen Norwood Hospital and the Norwood clinics. The Healey administration also wants to see a new operator finish construction at the hospital and resume health care services.
"The challenge with Norwood is that right now, from our standpoint at health and human services, it's not a hospital. It's a construction site," Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh said on WCVB's "On The Record" last month.
The secretary continued, "We don't regulate construction sites. And that site is owned by one of these real estate investment trusts that was part of this whole Steward debacle. It's not currently a medical facility, and somebody has to come in and figure out a way to provide services."
