M E D I A A D V I S O RY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: David Schildmeier 781-249-0430
September 11, 2024 Audra Spraque, RN asprague1212@gmail.com
Ellen MacInnis, RN elmacinnis@aol.com
MNA/Steward Nurses Invited to Testify at DC Hearing Examining the Bankruptcy of Steward Healthcare and the Impact of Management’s Decisions on the Delivery of Patient Care
CANTON, MA – The Massachusetts Nurses Association, which represents more than 2,800 registered nurses working in hospitals impacted by the Steward crisis, has announced that two of its members – Ellen MacInnis who works at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center and Audra Sprague from Nashoba Vally Medical Center in Ayer — have been invited to testify on Thursday at a joint hearing in Washington, D.C. hosted by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP, which is examining the impact of the bankruptcy of Steward Healthcare and management’s decisions on the delivery of patient care.
Details
What: Hearing of the Senate HELP Committee on, “Examining the Bankruptcy of Steward Health Care: How Management Decisions Have Impacted Patient Care”
When: 10:00 a.m., Thursday, September 12, 2024
Where: Room 562, Dirksen Senate Office Building. The hearing will also be livestreamed on the HELP Committee’s website and Sanders’ social media pages.
Who: Patients, medical professionals, and community members affected by Dr. de la Torre’s Steward Health Care
MacInnis, who has worked for more than 26 years at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, will provide examples of how Steward’s failure to provide adequate staffing levels, as well as its failure to provide staff with access to needed supplies and equipment at a number of their facilities, resulted in degraded patient care, the needless suffering for too many patients, as well as preventable patient deaths.
Sprague, who has worked at Nashoba Valley Medical Center for 17 years, will describe how Steward’s neglect and mismanagement lead to the closure of the facility, depriving more than 15 communities and more than 150,000 residents of access to needed care and services. She will also detail her personal experience as the mother of a patient at the hospital, and what it means for families to be cared for in an understaffed, under resourced environment.
The testimony will also address the need for Steward to be held for the harm it has caused, as well as for greater oversight and regulation by both state and federal agencies of all private equity/for profit providers to protect patients and communities from future harm caused by operators that place their focus on profit margins over their mission of providing needed care to patients and communities.
Copies of the nurses’ testimony will be made available on the day of the hearing and reporters
Contact David Schilmeier at dschildmeier@mnarn.org.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association, represents nurses and healthcare professionals working in eight of the nine hospitals impacted by the Steward crisis including Carney Hospital in Dorchester (recently closed), Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton and St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton (recently purchased by Boston Medical Center), Holy Family Hospitals in Haverhill and Methuen (recently purchased by Lawrence General Hospital), Morton Hospital in Taunton (recently purchased by Lifespan in Providence RI), Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer (recently closed) and Norwood Hospital (closed by flood).
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Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 23,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.
