The state and city government needs to do its job and save Carney Hospital. The Department of Public Health (DPH), the Attorney General, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, the Speaker of the House, the Senate President, the Mayor and the Governor need to save this hospital.

Every time there is a hospital closure it’s the same thing: The DPH holds listening sessions, and then another hospital closes in another poor neighborhood.

In 2014 in one of the poorest cities in the State, North Adams Regional Medical Center, closed with no notice at all, violating the state’s 120-day notice law. Did the DPH or Attorney General Coakley bring charges against their owners? No.

Also, in 2014, Steward closed Quincy Medical Center. They broke their contract with the Attorney General in which they promised to keep the hospital open for at least 10 years with 8 years to go. Steward strangled the hospital for two years before it’s closure, keeping doctors and patients out, so they could tell the DPH that volume was down – Exactly what they have been doing at The Carney.

The DPH dutifully wrote down their testimony. What did then AG Coakley’s office or Governor Baker do to enforce the contract with the people of the commonwealth? Nothing.

Steward promised that Carney Hospital was close enough to provide care for Quincy’s 84,000 people. The state said, “What can we do?” And, so, they did nothing.

In 2013, Steward Morton Hospital in the working-class city of Taunton shut down its pediatrics unit because it wasn’t making money. Hundreds turned out to the DPH hearing. The DPH ruled that it was an essential service. Steward shut it down anyway. The state did nothing.

In 2017, Steward’s Morton Hospital shut down their labor and delivery department. Hundreds protested at the DPH hearing, many testifying that Steward had forced out their midwives and OB-GYN’s so that a year later they could claim that volume was down. The DPH found it was essential, that it should not be shut down, and then let it shut down. Now there is a maternity desert around Taunton, and women literally give birth in ambulances and on the side of the highway to Brockton. The state did nothing.

In 2019, Steward ordered their staff in the struggling working-class city of Brockton to only admit half of the number of substance use patients to their Foxborough NorCap unit as the unit was licensed for. Then they laid off staff because they had kept out the patients. In 2020 they told the DPH they wanted to close the unit, because people from 50 miles around — who were waiting for days, weeks months to get clean and sober— supposedly just weren’t coming.

Don’t worry, Steward told the DPH, we’re building a replacement unit at Morton. They closed NorCap, and the state did nothing. Except that they did give Steward a new license for their new unit at Morton.

But Steward never allowed the Morton detox unit to fully open—keeping its admissions capped. Then, in 2023, they told the DPH they were going to close it because there weren’t enough patients needing detox beds in the Taunton, Brockton, Foxborough region. But don’t make us go through a public hearing, Steward told the DPH, because we’re going to move that unit to the Carney. The DPH said OK.

Everyone knew they would never build the unit at the Carney. Then they announced they wouldn’t and they didn’t. But the state let them shut down the detox unit at Morton Hospital.

Steward had planned all along to use that rebuild space in Morton Hospital as super-profitable surgical department beds, pretending that they were being built to replace the closed detox unit at Good Samaritan. The DPH was feckless. The state did nothing.

On May 11-12, 2022 Steward St. Elizabeth’s had a power failure for 36 hours affecting half of the hospital wings, we called the DPH and begged them to send inspectors, and do you know what the chief inspector told us? Steward says the lights are on, so there’s no reason for us to go there. To be clear—for 36 hours, the lights were off.

The DPH and Health and Human Services say there’s nothing they can do. The state law says they can’t order a hospital to stay open, but the legislature doesn’t give them enforcement power. Every year, healthcare workers bring a bill to the State House to give the DPH enforcement powers and it's never allowed to come to a vote. What can we do?” asks powerful officials. And the house speaker, the senate president and the AG say nothing at all.

What they can do is save this hospital.

And before the inevitable calls come in tomorrow about how we all went just too far in what we said tonight, one last request: SAVE it. Prove we’re wrong by saving this hospital and we’ll apologize and thank you.

Dana Simon is the director of Strategic Campaigns for the Massachusetts Nurses Association.