BOSTON HERALD – A Texas-based federal bankruptcy judge will allow Steward Health Care to shutter the Bay State’s Carney Hospital and Nashoba Valley Medical Center, a decision he stressed he did not take lightly.
Noting he had read and entered into the record the pleas of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the State’s Attorney General, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, and considered the 120-day hospital closure notification period required by the Bay State, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez said federal bankruptcy laws left him little choice but to allow the hospitals to close.
“Closing one hospital is real – it’s affecting the lives of people who are in there right now,” he said. “The importance of every individual weighs on me, when I’m told there could be life decisions…but from a legal standpoint, the debtors have the authority to close.”
“The debtors are going to be authorized to close the hospitals. The legal standard has been met. My job is to enforce the law. I hope people understand how keeping those hospitals open, based upon the evidence before me, threatens the entire hospital system in Massachusetts,” Lopez said, his voice halting as he struggled to find the right words for such a delicate decision.
With his ruling, Steward will be allowed to close the hospitals by or around August 31, as announced last week.
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Lopez said his decision was made with every party’s interests at heart, including the dozens of patients at those two hospitals. However, he said the choice of whether or not to close the hospitals is not his to make in the end, but goes to the “business judgment” of Steward as they attempt to navigate their way through Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proceedings.
The Commonwealth’s recent offer of $30 million to help stabilize the hospitals for another month, Lopez said, couldn’t even enter into his decision making process …
