Patients will suffer with bankrupt health care firm’s closure of Massachusetts hospitals, staff say

Staff are furious because they say that behind the failure of the Dallas-based company that owns the hospitals, Steward Health Care, lies a story of alleged corporate greed involving one of their own.

Former Massachusetts heart surgeon Ralph de la Torre, who founded Steward and remains its chief executive, extracted more than $100 million from the company before it filed for bankruptcy in May, according to lawsuits and bankruptcy filings. The company had earlier cashed in by selling all its hospitals for $1.2 billion and then leasing them back from the new owners. The company described it as an “asset-light” model designed to prioritize patient care.

But a lawsuit filed by Aya Healthcare in Texas claims that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Steward elected to rain cash on its equity holders instead of paying bills and keeping critical hospitals operating at peak levels. Aya claims Steward owes it $45 million after not paying for hospital nurses it provided.

The lawsuit claims de la Torre used ill-gotten gains to fund a lavish lifestyle, including buying two luxury yachts worth more than $65 million. In recent weeks, as Hernon and other staff fought to keep their hospitals open, de la Torre and his family were on vacation at the Paris Olympics, watching the equestrian dressage events at the Palace at Versailles.