Massachusetts public health officials have activated an "emergency operations plan" to ensure continued access to medical care as the Steward Health Care hospital system faces an increasingly worrying financial outlook.
Patients who are medically cleared to be discharged from a hospital continue to stay much longer than they need to largely because they cannot get the ongoing specialized care they require.
In what could be a harbinger of things to come for struggling rural hospitals, Mahnomen Health will transition its 10-bed hospital to a rural emergency center starting Wednesday.
Interviews with several current employees — and complaints filed with the state — paint a picture of flagging investment in facilities, administrative dysfunction and, in one case, an alleged rat infestation.