Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre can be stepping down after refusing to testify earlier than a U.S. Senate panel on how his well being care firm went stomach up, which earned him a referral to a federal prosecutor for a legal contempt cost.
A spokesperson for de la Torre instructed The Related Press on Saturday that he “has amicably separated from Steward on mutually agreeable terms” and “will continue to be a tireless advocate for the improvement of reimbursement rates for the underprivileged patient population.” His resignation is efficient Monday, Oct. 1.
The Dallas-based Steward declared chapter in Could, and its 32 hospitals throughout the nation, which incorporates eight in Massachusetts, not lengthy thereafter started to shutter so as to repay its outstanding debt obligations, the Herald has reported.
However they couldn’t at all times discover a purchaser. The tip of final month noticed each Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Middle shut as a result of no bidders stepped ahead.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Friday introduced that her administration had seized management of St. Elizabeth’s Medical Middle in Brighton from Steward’s former landlord there, the Wall Road personal fairness agency Apollo World. It’s the primary half in a plan to show the hospital over to Boston Medical Middle.
Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health, Schooling, Labor and Pensions Committee, wagged his finger at an image of de la Torre’s yacht presupposed to be price $40 million and mentioned that Congress “will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America.”
De la Torre additionally will get little love from Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, who mentioned in a press release following the contempt decision that “Over the past decade, Steward, led by its founder and CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre, and its corporate enablers, looted hospitals across the country for profit, and got rich through their greedy schemes.”
“Hospital systems collapsed, workers struggled to provide care, and patients suffered and died. Dr. de la Torre and his corporate cronies abdicated their responsibility to these communities that they had promised to serve,” Markey mentioned.
Because the hospitals spiraled into chapter 11, de la Torre grew wealthy, Markey mentioned, shopping for “fancy cars and private planes and becoming the poster child of callous corporate greed.”
The Related Press and beforehand revealed Herald materials contributed to this report.
