BOSTON (AP) — The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a resolution to hold Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre in criminal contempt of court for failing to testify before a Senate committee.
The Senate unanimously approved the measure.
Members of a Senate committee investigating the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care passed the resolution last week after de la Torre refused to attend a committee hearing last week despite being issued a subpoena. The resolution was sent to the full Senate for consideration.
Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said de la Torre’s decision to ignore the subpoena left the committee no choice but to bring contempt of court charges.
As part of the proposed criminal contempt resolution, the matter will be referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who will prosecute de la Torre for failure to comply with the subpoena.
A representative for de la Torre did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sanders said he wanted an explanation from de la Torre about how at least 15 patients died at Steward hospitals due to inadequate medical equipment or staffing, and why at least 2,000 other patients were in “immediate danger,” according to federal authorities.
He said the committee also wants to know how de la Torre and the companies he owned were able to receive at least $250 million in compensation over the past few years while thousands of patients and health care workers suffered and communities were devastated as a result of Steward Health Care’s financial mismanagement.
Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the committee, said communities have been harmed by the actions of Steward and de la Torre.
“Steward’s mismanagement has a national impact, affecting patient care at more than 30 hospitals in eight states, including one in my home state,” he said.
Alexander Merton, an attorney for de la Torre, said in a letter to the committee ahead of the hearing last week that the committee’s requirement to allow him to testify in court was a violation of his rights under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Constitution protects de la Torre from being coerced by the government into giving a sworn statement to portray him “as a criminal scapegoat for the systematic failures of the Massachusetts health care system,” Merton wrote, adding that de la Torre would agree to testify at a later date.
Texas-based Steward, which operates about 30 hospitals nationwide, filed for bankruptcy in May.
Steward has tried to sell half a dozen hospitals in Massachusetts, but the company received inadequate offers for two other hospitals, Carney Hospital in Boston and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in the town of Ayer, and both hospitals were forced to close.
A federal bankruptcy court this month approved Steward’s sale of other Massachusetts hospitals.
Steward also closed pediatric wards in Massachusetts and Louisiana, closed neonatal wards in Florida and Texas, and eliminated the maternity ward of a Florida hospital.
Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts said that over the past decade, Steward, led by de la Torre, and his corporate backers have “looted hospitals across the country for profit and enriched themselves through their greedy schemes.”
“Hospitals collapsed, staff struggled to care for patients, and patients suffered and died. Dr. de la Torre and his corporate cronies failed in their responsibilities to the communities they promised to serve,” he added.
Ellen MacInnis, a nurse at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston, testified before the committee last week that patients were exposed to preventable harm and even death under the direction of stewards, especially in understaffed emergency rooms.
She said there was a case where Steward failed to pay a supplier who supplied funeral boxes for the remains of deceased newborns that needed to be taken to the mortuary.
“Nurses were forced to pack the babies’ remains into shipping boxes,” she said. “These nurses pooled their own money, went to Amazon and bought the funeral boxes.”
