The process of building Steward Health Care into the country’s largest for-profit hospital chain took chief executive Ralph de la Torre almost a decade. Now, with the chain in bankruptcy and some hospitals already closed, the process of holding de la Torre accountable is just getting started.
On Thursday morning, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee is scheduled to vote on civil and criminal referrals for contempt of Congress over de la Torre’s refusal to testify at a hearing last week despite being subpoenaed. If the full Senate goes along and the US attorney presses charges, de la Torre could find himself in prison.
The votes come a day after a lawyer for de la Torre blasted congressional efforts to investigate the executive’s role in the crisis, arguing that de la Torre’s refusal to testify is protected by the Fifth Amendment and was not permitted because of the company’s ongoing bankruptcy reorganization.
The Steward executive cannot be forced to give “sworn testimony that is specifically (yet baselessly) sought to frame Dr. de la Torre as a criminal scapegoat for the systemic failures in Massachusetts’ health care system,” the letter from Alexander Merton, a partner in the Washington office of law firm Quinn Emanuel, noted.
Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey rejected the arguments and called on de la Torre to testify.
“Ralph de la Torre’s excuses are as empty as his chair was at our hearing last week,” Markey told the Globe. Approving the contempt motions “will make him know that accountability is arriving and he must provide answers to the committee, to the residents of Massachusetts, and to the country.”
The legal process could follow the path laid out by lawmakers who investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro were subpoenaed but refused to testify, citing executive privilege. Both were referred for criminal charges and ended up serving months-long prison sentences.
At last week’s hearing, senators heard from Ellen MacInnis, a nurse who worked at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center for 25 years, who told the panel she saw patients die because of understaffing. Amid the Steward bankruptcy, the company last month closed Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, leaving big holes in the state’s health care system. Six other Steward hospitals in Massachusetts are being transferred to new operators.
Lawmakers and other critics have charged de la Torre and his financial partners, private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management and real estate investment trust Medical Properties Trust, extracted vast profits while loading the company with debt, leading to the bankruptcy.
Aaron Pressman can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @ampressman.
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Publish date : 2024-09-19 00:10:00
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