A bankruptcy judge Tuesday approved the sale of three hospitals in Brevard and Indian River counties to Orlando Health. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez issued an order approving the sales of Melbourne Regional Medical Center and Rockledge Regional Medical Center in Brevard County and Sebastian River Medical Center in Indian River County.
More than half of Steward-owned hospitals ranked in the bottom half of acute care hospitals nationwide for patient outcomes. Many of those hospitals also ranked in the bottom quarter for hospitals nationwide and in their state. Those are just a few of the top-line findings of a new report issued by one of the chain's most vocal critics on Capitol Hill, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.
Pioneers Memorial Healthcare District announced on Monday "the departure" of CEO Christopher R. Bjornberg. "After thorough discussion and consideration, it was decided by the Board of Directors to move forward with this decision," district spokesperson, Michelle Ramirez, wrote in an email response to inquiries from IVP asking for more details than the September 9 press release provided. "In the absence of the CEO, the Board of Directors will continue overseeing district operations until an interim is found," she wrote. Rumors that two PMHD board members were to resign proved to be false. Bjornberg was announced as PMHD's new CEO on November 10, 2023, and signed a five-year contract with district.
State and federal regulators have just three weeks to green-light deals that will keep St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston and five other hospitals open. State Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell's office has already finished its review and given its assent to the sales of St. Elizabeth's and five other hospitals: Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, St. Anne's Hospital in Fall River, Morton Hospital in Taunton, and Holy Family Hospital with campuses in Methuen and Haverhill. But the deals still are subject to review by the state Department of Public Health, the state Health Policy Commission, the US Department of Justice, and the FTC in a compressed timetable dictated in large part by the hospitals' precarious finances.
The University's Board of Visitors received a letter of no confidence for Craig Kent, chief executive officer of U.Va. Health, and Melina Kibbe, dean of the School of Medicine, Medicine professor and chief health affairs officer, demanding both of their removals. The letter, signed by 128 U.Va. Physicians Group-employed faculty, alleges that the two leaders have fostered an environment that compromises patient safety and creates a culture of fear among faculty. The letter accuses Kent and Kibbe of allowing "egregious acts" to occur at U.Va. Health and the School of Medicine, including hiring doctors with questionable quality of work, subjecting residents to harassment, excessive spending on executives instead of addressing staffing shortages, a lack of transparency on financial matters and violations of the Board of Visitors-approved code of ethics.
Cerberus Capital Management, which bought a group of Massachusetts community hospitals in 2010, and Steward Health Care, the company led by de la Torre and formed to run them, promised to invest enough to make the facilities models of care and maximize shareholder value. They rejected the argument some of us made at the time, that the kind of profits they were anticipating were utterly incompatible with providing health services to low-income patients. Well, they got their payouts. And their patients got understaffed emergency rooms, canceled surgeries, postponed medical tests, and critical — in some cases deadly — equipment shortages.