A coalition of residents, health care workers, business, and other leaders has organized a series of rallies and forums over the next week in communities with Steward Health Care hospitals with the aim of urging elected leaders and stakeholders to take steps to avoid reductions or closures at the sites.
The coalition, Our Community | Our Hospital, has also launched an online petition that calls on elected leaders to secure ownership of the Steward facilities to “to ensure the patients and families long-served by these institutions continue to have access to the care and services they provide for generations to come.”
The rallies and forums, which kicked off in Taunton on Tuesday afternoon, are being held in Brockton, Methuen, Haverhill, Fall River, Dorchester, and Brighton.
Steward, which runs 30 hospitals across the country, operates nine health care facilities in Massachusetts. Gov. Maura Healey and other elected officials have said they are watching the financially-embattled company carefully as it navigates its uncertain future.
Our Community | Our Hospital said in a statement announcing the week’s events that the Steward facilities are some of the largest employers in the communities, with “more than 16,000 workers and caregivers, who not only safeguard care, but also contribute to the economic health of our small businesses, cities, and towns.”
“The loss of any of these facilities will deliver a devastating blow to the entire health care infrastructure in the Commonwealth, particularly to some of the most vulnerable and marginalized patients and families,” the coalition wrote on its petition. “Patients will be subjected to dangerous delays in care, be forced to travel longer distances for care, and for many, to go without care altogether.”
The “critical task” before stakeholders now, the group said, is to secure new ownership of the Steward facilities and “ensure a safer, more equitable not-for-profit healthcare system.”
“Failure in this endeavor is not an option that any of us should accept or tolerate,” the group wrote. “The health of our residents is not a commodity to be traded; it is a precious resource that we all share a responsibility to protect for the future of our communities.”
Below, a list of the rallies and forums organized by the coalition:
Good Samaritan Medical Center Community Forum
Wednesday, April 24 at 6:30 p.m.
At Keating Hall, 800 Perkins Ave., Brockton
Holy Family Hospital/Methuen Community Rally
Wednesday, April 24 at 3 p.m.
14-274 Berkeley St., Methuen
Holy Family Hospital/Haverhill Community Rally
Wednesday, April 24 at 4:30 p.m.
Lincoln Ave. and Brown St., Haverhill
St. Anne’s Hospital Community Rally
Thursday, April 25 at 3:30 p.m.
At Kennedy Park, 132 Bradford Ave., Fall River
Carney Hospital Community Forum
Thursday, April 25 at 6:30 p.m.
At St. Gregory’s Auditorium, 2214 Dorchester Ave., Boston
St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center Community Forum
Monday, April 29 at 3:00 p.m.
In Front of Hospital, 738 Cambridge St., Brighton
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