Brendan Lusby, a surgical technician at Holy Family Hospital, is wearing a new T-shirt to work this week. It’s his way of marking the end of Steward Health Care’s operation of the hospital, which came under new ownership Tuesday as part of Steward’s bankruptcy.
The shirt reads: “I survived Steward and now I have PTSD: Post-traumatic Steward disorder.”
Lusby said he created the shirt because working at a Steward-owned hospital was traumatic. During his seven years at Holy Family’s campus in Methuen, Lusby said he witnessed the results of Steward’s lack of investment in its Massachusetts hospitals. He described issues such as understaffing and medical equipment shortages because vendors were not paid.
But, Lusby said, Holy Family’s strength was its focus on being part of the community, and that’s something he believes the new owner, Lawrence General Hospital, will continue.
“I think Lawrence is going to just help us grow because they’re part of that community and serving the same population,” Lusby said.
As new owners take over Holy Family and four other former Steward hospitals, they face a number of challenges. One of the most significant may be integrating thousands of former Steward employees who watched conditions in their hospitals deteriorate as Steward’s financial losses mounted.
Lusby expects noticeable changes, especially for patients.
“They will notice that everything is better,” Lusby said. “Our buildings are getting cleaned now, we’re not down to just one elevator, things will be be maintained — everything’s going to be better. ”
Some of the changes may be difficult for Holy Family’s 1,400 workers, especially when it comes to employee benefits like health insurance. Lusby said the unions are still negotiating, but many workers expect their health insurance will be much more expensive under Lawrence General. The initial proposal, he said, would have increased his costs by about 8 times the current rate for family coverage. He said he’s hopeful the unions can broker better benefits for the former Steward workers.
“One thing Steward got right was benefits,” Lusby said. “And they offered really good insurance, inexpensive family plans that worked well for our entire employee population, and with Lawrence being a smaller hospital system, it could not touch what we’ve been used to.”
The judge overseeing Steward’s bankruptcy approved the transition of the Holy Family campuses in Methuen and Haverhill to Lawrence General. The judge also approved separate deals for Boston Medical Center to take over St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton and Good Samaritan Hospital in Brockton; and for Rhode Island-based Lifespan to acquire St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River and Morton Hospital in Taunton.
During a state Health Policy Commission advisory board meeting last month, Julie Pinkham, executive director of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, said the change in ownership and benefits to staff is “massively disruptive” for many of those who will now work under the new owners.
“The employees are being transitioned to health insurance products within these various institutions that provide at best 30% of what they had, at about three times the cost,” Pinkham said. “I don’t know how many people will be retained in these institutions if indeed this happens. This is catastrophic for them.”
Despite these concerns, the Health Policy Commission allowed the hospital sales to move forward. They were also reviewed by regulators including the state health department and the state Attorney General’s Office.
In the first days since the new owners officially stepped in, many former Steward workers said they’re relieved and believe the change will allow them to focus on patient care by removing the distraction of Steward’s financial problems.
Two Steward hospitals, Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, closed because the company said it received no credible offers and could no longer afford to keep them open.
Ellen MacInnis, a nurse at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, said she remains hopeful that new operators will come forward to take over Carney and Nashoba Valley.
“As much as I’m delighted about St. Elizabeth’s and the other hospitals, we’re not done yet,” MacInnis said. “This not an event, it’s a process, and we still need to make things right for those two hospitals, for the 20-odd communities served by those two facilities.”
MacInnis, who is a member of the nurses union board, testified before a congressional committee about what she described as Steward’s dangerous management practices. Although she agrees that health insurance and other worker benefits remain an obstacle as the Steward era closes, she said she’s not sorry to see the company go.
“It feels like a weight has been lifted,” MacInnis said. “For the last 14 years, we’ve been fighting, fighting, fighting for every stupid, foolish little thing. And now we don’t have to do that anymore. We have somebody who cares about our patients as much as we do. “
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
