A hospital that was once the nation’s first COVID care center during the height of the pandemic is closing its doors for good.
Two Steward Health Care facilities are closing Saturday, Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer.
And this despite several months of pressure from politicians who claim that its managers prioritize profits over patients.
We first learned about the possibility of closing these hospitals at the beginning of the year, when it was revealed that the company that operates 9 hospitals in Massachusetts was in financial crisis.
Gov. Maura Healey told the Texas-based health care system to leave the state in February.
Steward Health Care filed for bankruptcy in May and began selling off its hospitals. They signed deals to save six hospitals, but Carney and Nashoba Valley are not among them, affecting thousands of patients and staff who have been there for decades.
“We’re going to have chaos,” Ayer Select Board member Jannice Livingston said on the eve of the closing of Nashoba Valley Medical Center. It is set to close its doors Saturday, along with another Steward Health Care facility, Carney Hospital in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood — unable to be saved amid Steward’s bankruptcy crisis.
“I think it will be a lot like last time. You know, we’re all going to tell stories and memories of things we’ve been through and things we’ve done. There is laughter. There will be tears. We’ll see. But it will be really sad. It’s been a really challenging month,” said emergency room nurse Maryann Rockett, who went through the 2020 closing of Quincy Hospital.
Healey announced Friday that Boston Medical Center will take over operations at St. Elizabeth’s in Brighton and Good Samaritan in Brockton.
Two Steward Health Care hospitals will close soon, impacting patients and families.