BOSTON (WHDH) – Employees gathered Monday morning to protest the planned closure of Carney Hospital in Dorchester, criticizing hospital owner Steward Health Care and calling on state officials to take action.
The protest came 10 days after Steward announced plans to close Carney and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer. The protest also followed more recent news that Steward plans to lay off staff at both hospitals as it shutters those facilities.
By 9 a.m. Monday, dozens of people were massing outside Carney Hospital’s emergency room with signs and a bullhorn.
“Keep Carney Hospital open,” read several signs.
“It’s devastating,” said Carney hospital patient Robert La Rosa. “All my doctors are here.”
Financial troubles at Steward led to a bankruptcy filing earlier this year and touched off wide-ranging criticism from hospital employees, their union representatives, patients, and public officials alike.
Steward operates eight hospitals in Massachusetts and announced plans to sell all its hospitals after it filed for bankruptcy. Late last month, Steward said it was in talks to finalize the sale of six hospitals. After receiving no qualified bids for Carney or Nashoba, though, Steward said it would close those facilities at the end of August.
Though leaders have condemned Steward and the decisions they say led to the company’s bankruptcy, some state legislators and representatives of the Massachusetts Nurses Association have said the state should be doing more.
“For the residents of the Commonwealth, no community is expendable, and all deserve our protection,” the nurses association said in a statement.
“Our state leaders, along with all stakeholders in this crisis have a pivotal choice to make in the crucial days that follow: we can sit back and allow a corrupt corporation and a limited bankruptcy process to dictate our fate and facilitate an unprecedented public health disaster, or we can all work together, utilizing all…