Dallas-based Steward Health Care closed a hospital in Texas this year and threatened to close another in Pennsylvania before selling it in 2020. Stan McLaren, CEO of Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Mass., another Steward hospital, remains bullish about survival despite ongoing financial challenges, according to The Bay State Banner.
"I did not come here for the hospital to close," Mr. McLaren, who became Carney’s CEO in 2021, told the Banner. "I haven't heard anything from corporate about plans to close Carney."
Whispers of a potential closure started when the hospital's four-year union contract expired with Carney nurses in December, and Steward initially proposed a new contract of just one year.
The hospital has almost always operated at a loss. One key reason is that up to 80 percent of its patients use government-sponsored insurance, such as MassHealth, which pays the hospital less for services than other payers do. Commercial payers also pay Carney less than other local hospitals for the same services, Mr. McLaren told the Banner.
"Carney has struggled financially for years, and the pandemic has exacerbated things," Mr. McLaren told the Dorchester Reporter. "And it's not just Carney. Some places when they catch a cold, we catch a fever. We don't have this huge private [insurance] base to support us."
Like many hospitals over the last year, Carney has had to cut staff through layoffs and buyouts, which meant that it had to cap the number of patients it could admit based on lack of staff.
Despite staff cuts, however, the hospital has seen investment in other areas, including new operating rooms, a dialysis room for kidney patients, a 3D mammography machine, an audiology booth for hearing tests, guest surgeons for outpatient surgeries and a wound care center for diabetic patients.
Mr. McLaren said that the hospital is underutilized and has the bandwidth to take on more patients in certain areas.
"I don't think Steward would invest this much in a hospital it intends to close," he said.