YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The bankruptcy court settlement reached Sept. 11 with creditors and lenders to keep the three local hospitals owned by Steward Health Care System operating would appear to bode well for the region.
But let’s not forget how we got here and the damage Steward has wrought. Case in point, the 2018 closing of Northside Regional Medical Center in Youngstown.
The office of U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., has released a scathing report – “How Corporate Greed Hurt Patients, Health Workers and Communities” – that cited Northside among its findings.
“[Northside] hospital, which had 398 beds and employed 388 people, operated the only labor and delivery unit within Youngstown city limits. The hospital’s closure had a serious impact on access to maternal health, where more than 43% of the population is Black,” the report states. “Tragically, infant mortality in Mahoning County worsened in subsequent years. 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 – most dramatically for Black babies.”
Reviewing the potentially criminal history of how Steward acquired its hospitals, physicians network and other properties – and its top executives’ self-dealings, Markey’s report cuts to the chase:
“Steward Health Care – alongside Cerberus Capital Management and Medical Properties Trust – gutted dozens of hospitals across the United States in order to extract maximum profit. In doing so, Steward became a case study of the extent of harm that corporate greed can have on health care access, quality, and safety.”
Using data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Markey report states:
• Death rates for certain conditions at some Steward-owned hospitals increased as death rates for those same conditions held steady or decreased across the country.
• More than half of Steward-owned hospitals rank in the bottom half of acute care hospitals nationwide for patient outcomes.
• Workers report difficulty providing care to patients, sustaining on-the-job injuries, and reduced morale due to degrading facilities, missing equipment, and chronic understaffing.
Given Steward’s track record, new operators of its hospitals enter under horrendous conditions. All we can do is wish them well.