BOSTON - On the eve of Thursday’s Senate committee in Washington on Steward Health Care’s bankruptcy, one of the system’s most vocal critics has released a report titled: “The Steward Health Care Report: How Corporate Greed Hurt Patients, Health Workers, and Communities”

The report released by Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security, criticizes Steward’s operation of several facilities, including three in the Mahoning and Shenango Valleys.

The report spotlights patient and worker experiences, hospital quality data, and information on hospital closures in Massachusetts and around the country, to document what it characterizes as the “devastating impacts of Steward Health Care’s mismanagement.”

 The report includes data and testimony from workers and patients on the alleged effects of private equity’s cost-cutting on Steward Health Care access, quality, and safety.

The report is based on data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Lown Institute, reports from health workers, bankruptcy documents, and other public reporting.

Citing CMS data, the report claims the quality of care at Steward-owned hospitals “shows systemic declines and generally sub-standard care compared to national and state averages.”

The report says that while the average time spent in a U.S. emergency room in 2024 is approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes, patients at Sharon Regional Medical Center wait 2 hours and 54 minutes for medical care, and more than 3 hours and 20 minutes at Trumbull Regional Medical Center.

 

The report also claims the time patients spent at several Steward-owned hospital emergency departments has also increased since 2017.

The data review also says the average time spent in the emergency room at Trumbull Regional Medical Center increased by more than an hour over seven years to more than 3.5 hours at 223 minutes.

The study also criticizes the number of patients leaving the emergency room without receiving care.

While nationally, 2% of all patients leave the emergency room without receiving care, the report says several other Steward-owned hospitals, including Trumbull Regional Medical Center and Sharon Regional Medical Center score in the bottom 6% of hospitals across the country for this metric.

 

 

 

The report quotes an unnamed staff member of Howland’s Hillside Rehabilitation Hospital as saying: “It seems like Steward has been sabotaging the Hospital since it was purchased. They have not maintained the facilities, and the most essential systems are rented, including the generator, air conditioning, and food storage.”

Another quotation attributed to an unnamed Hillside employee alleges that quality declined when Steward bought the hospital:

“In 2004, when I was hired, Hillside was the best place to be. We had a great reputation, we were respected by the community . . . . Then, along came Steward in 2017. Immediate cuts were made, and the management team was picked apart. . . .Steward never had the patients or staff’s best interest in mind, they were all about profit.”

From 2014 to 2024, Steward Health Care has closed eight hospitals translating to approximately 1,533 patient beds and 4,431 jobs across Arizona, Ohio, Massachusetts, and Texas, according to the report.

In August 2018, Steward announced the closure of Youngstown’s Northside Regional Medical Center which had 398 beds and employed 388 people, and operated the only labor and delivery unit within city limits.

The report says that since 2019 the proportion of births in which the mother had a prenatal care visit has decreased in Mahoning County, and the infant mortality rate has increased.

The closure also significantly impacted the region’s workforce, as the healthcare sector up a third

Anthony Caldwell of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) said the closure was “a huge blow to the local economy and to the local health care community.” At the time of closure, Northside “was the only hospital in the area that provided dental services to patients with Down syndrome, it was the only labor and delivery department in Youngstown, and its closure meant possibly overburdening the emergency room of the next closes hospital.”

Senator Markey is calling for transparency and accountability for private equity in health care which he said would protect patients, providers, and workers; and guarantee health care for all.

“Using hospitals as a get-rich-quick scheme creates a powder keg for the actual provision of care...Steward Health Care – enabled by Cerberus Capital Management and Medical Properties Trust – has preyed on the hospitals on which communities rely,” said Senator Markey. “Its malpractice shows in the stunning cost that communities, workers, and patients are now paying for Steward’s greed. Communities are paying with the closures of essential health institutions. Workers are paying with their livelihoods. Patients are paying with their lives.”   

21 News has reached out to Steward Health for comment on the report and as of this writing is still waiting for a reply.

As of Wednesday, a hearing in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas was weighing a possible sale of Steward's hospitals in the Mahoning Valley.

A copy of “The Steward Health Care Report: How Corporate Greed Hurt Patients, Health Workers, and Communities” can be seen HERE: