UMass Memorial Health is reportedly exploring the possibility of taking over the emergency department at the struggling Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, which is scheduled to close later this month.
Dr. Eric Dickson, president and CEO of UMass Memorial Health, is floating the idea that the hospital system could convert Nashoba’s emergency department into an urgent care center or nursing facility. The news was first reported in the Worcester Business Journal.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association immediately criticized UMass, saying such a move would not meet the needs of patients at Nashoba.
UMass declined a request from the Telegram & Gazette to interview Dickson, saying in a statement that it has no plans to bid for hospitals owned by Steward Health Care. It’s the same statement UMass sent last week after the T&G asked if the hospital system was interested in buying Nashoba.
Governor Maura T. Healey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Dickson’s ideas for Nashoba.
Steward filed for bankruptcy in May and notified Massachusetts authorities last month that Nashoba would close on Aug. 31. Steward maintains there have been no qualified offers to buy Nashoba, but talks have intensified over the past two weeks to find a buyer for the hospital, said Sen. John Cronin (D-Lunenburg), vice chairman of the state Senate’s Joint Committee on Health Care Financing.
Healey’s government is reportedly prepared to spend $700 million over three years to prop up six Steward hospitals after they are sold to nonprofit health systems, but not a penny of that is earmarked for Nashoba.
On Monday, Healey said she was “open to anything” when it came to the sale of Boston’s Nashoba and Carney Hospital, another Steward-owned hospital scheduled to close Aug. 31. Healey also reiterated her claim that Steward’s mismanagement was to blame for the decline, and no qualified bidder has come forward to buy Nashoba and Carney.
The Worcester Business Journal report quoted Dickson as saying that closing the Nashoba hospital would result in patients going to overcrowded emergency rooms at other hospitals, and converting it to an urgent care center or nursing facility could ease some of the burden.
The nursing association believes that the only acceptable way to protect Nashoba’s patients is to keep the hospital open.
“An urgent care center cannot provide emergency care, a nursing facility cannot provide acute care, and a nursing facility cannot replace 20 desperately needed psychiatric beds,” the union said in its prepared statement. “If this plan were adopted, we would continue to force seriously ill patients to travel longer distances for treatment, and those patients would continue to burden already overcrowded emergency departments in surrounding communities, which would impact patient care across Central Massachusetts.”
It continued: “We are aware that there are other parties interested in bidding on this hospital and Carney Hospital, and we believe that the state and other stakeholders must make every effort to ensure the survival of these hospitals as full-service hospitals and provide the necessary funding. Anything else would jeopardize the care provided to these communities.”
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Contact Henry Schwan at [email protected]. Follow him on X: @henrytelegram.
