A day after an legal professional wrote that Steward Health Care’s CEO received’t be at a congressional listening to subsequent week regardless of being subpoenaed, lawmakers stated they’re engaged on a contempt quotation in opposition to the embattled chief.
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey instructed reporters Thursday that he and Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-VT, are placing collectively a bipartisan plan to vote on a contempt quotation in opposition to Ralph de la Torre, who they are saying is in the end accountable for Steward’s failure.
Markey and Sanders, boisterous critics of da la Torre, lead the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Schooling, Labor and Pensions, which voted in July to launch a Congressional investigation into what led Steward to file for chapter protections this previous Could.
That vote additionally included subpoenaing on-the-record testimony from de la Torre.
However on Wednesday, de la Torre’s legal professional Alexander J. Merton wrote a letter to Sanders, highlighting how the CEO is prohibited from talking on his firm’s behalf relating to any “bankruptcy-related issues,” per a federal courtroom order.
An impartial subcommittee of Steward’s board of managers established final December has been delegated to talk on the continuing points as a substitute of de la Torre, Merton wrote.
The listening to shall be held subsequent Thursday it doesn’t matter what, Markey stated. An empty chair shall be seen that will have been for de la Torre, persevering with a sample that began in April when de la Torre didn’t supply voluntary testimony at a senate committee area listening to in Boston.
“We will have witnesses that come from the affected communities who will sit in their chairs to testify,” Markey stated. “This time not in the Massachusetts State House but in the Capitol of the United States so his story could be told across our country.”
The HELP Committee might vote on a felony contempt quotation in opposition to de la Torre which might result in a trial and jail time or a civil cost that will lead to fines till he seems. Each would wish Senate approval to undergo.
This has been a giant week amid the Steward disaster that has rattled Massachusetts’ healthcare system the whole yr.
A federal chapter courtroom decide on Wednesday authorized the Dallas-based healthcare firm’s plan to promote its six Bay State hospitals – St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, Morton Hospital in Taunton, Holy Household Hospital amenities in Methuen and Haverhill, Good Samaritan Medical Middle in Brockton and St. Elizabeth’s Medical Middle in Brighton.
Steward closed its different two Massachusetts amenities, Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Middle in Ayer, final Saturday.
“Unfortunately, while Dr. de la Torre has continued to fight for Steward hospitals and the patients and communities they serve,” Merton wrote in his letter to Sanders, “members of this Committee continue to cast aspersions on Dr. de la Torre and appear determined to turn the hearing into a pseudo-criminal proceeding in which they use the time, not to gather facts, but to convict Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of public opinion.”
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren took exception to that remark, particularly the “pseudo-criminal proceeding” dubbing.
Chatting with reporters alongside Markey and different leaders, Warren referenced a report earlier this week from the Globe Highlight Workforce that discovered a number of cases wherein de la Torre allegedly dipped into Steward’s financial institution accounts for his acquire.
Some expenditures embrace the CEO securing a multimillion-dollar residence and touring on company jets to “far-flung vacation destinations,” the Globe reported.
“It is entirely possible that Mr. de la Torre’s looting of Steward may have involved significant criminal activity, but that is not an excuse for ignoring a subpoena,” Warren stated. “Congress has questions to ask, and if Mr. de la Torre believes the answers will put him at risk for going to jail, he can take the Fifth Amendment right out in public for everyone to see.”
Ellen MacInnis, a registered nurse at St. Elizabeth’s and a board member of the Massachusetts Nurses Affiliation, urged the lawmakers to make good on their vows to carry de la Torre accountable.
“While he sailed on his yachts, flew in his jets, vacationed around the world,” MacInnis stated, “those of us in the trenches of his depleted and embattled hospitals were forced to care for patients in understaffed units with broken and missing equipment, missing supplies.”
“Nurses brought in their own food to feed diabetic patients at night when the kitchen was closed and we had no options,” she added. “An innocent young mother died because the piece of equipment that could have saved her life had been repossessed by an unpaid vendor.”
Initially Printed:
