As more than 30 hospitals in the Steward Health Care System hoarded cash to cover supplies, closed pediatric and neonatal units, shuttered maternity wards, laid off hundreds of health workers and laid off patients. Put at risk, the system paid at least $250. Millions to its CEO and his companies, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
Newly disclosed financial details bring more scrutiny to Steward CEO Ralph De La Torre, a Harvard University-trained heart surgeon who bought majority ownership of Steward in 2020 from private equity firm Cerberus. De La Torre and his companies have reportedly been paid at least $250 million since the takeover. In May, Steward, which owns hospitals in eight states, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Critics — including members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) — charge that de la Torre and the system’s hospitals have lost assets, taken payments from them, and gone into debt. Loaded, while getting huge payouts. who made him obscenely rich.
Alleged greed
For example, de la Torre sold the land under the system’s hospitals to a major hospital owner, the Medical Properties Trust, leaving Steward Hospitals on the hook for huge rent payments. Under De La Torre, Steward paid the management consulting firm $30 million a year to “provide executive oversight and general strategic direction.” However, De La Tor was the majority owner of the consulting firm, which also employed Steward’s other executives. As the WSJ put it, Steward “effectively paid its CEO’s company, which employed Steward’s executive staff to perform executive management services for Steward.”
In 2021, while the COVID-19 pandemic put pressure on hospitals, Steward distributed $111 million to shareholders. The WSJ reported that La Torre owned 73 percent of the company at the time, making his stake worth about $81 million. That year, De La Torre bought the 190-foot yacht for $40 million. He also owns a fishing boat named Custom worth $15 million Jarrocco. The Senate Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, notes that Steward has two jets, one worth $62 million and a second “backup” jet worth $33 million.
In 2022, De La Torre married in an elaborate wedding on Italy’s Amalfi Coast and purchased a 500-acre Texas ranch for at least $7.2 million. His new wife, Nicole Acosta, 29, is a competitive gymnast who trains at a facility near the farm. She races a horse that sold for $3.5 million in 2014, though it’s unclear how much the couple paid for her. In addition to the farm, De La Tor, 58, owns an 11,108-square-foot mansion in Dallas worth $7.2 million, the WSJ reported.
While de la Torre lived a lavish life, Steward’s hospitals were in dire straits – as they had been for years. An investigation by the Senate Appropriations Committee noted that Steward closed dozens of hospitals in Massachusetts, Ohio, Arizona, and Texas between 2014 and this year, laying off thousands of health workers and leaving communities in fear. It closed several pediatric wards in Massachusetts and Texas; In Florida, it closed neonatal units and eliminated maternity services. In Louisiana, Steward’s patients were in “immediate danger.”
“Third World Medicine”
At a July hearing, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), ranking member of the HELP Committee, spoke about conditions at Glenwood Regional Medical Center in West Monroe, Louisiana, which Steward claimed Mismanaged. “According to a report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a physician at Glenwood told the Louisiana state examiner that the hospital was practicing Third World medicine,” Cassidy said.
In addition, “one patient died while waiting to be transferred to another hospital because Glenwood did not have the resources to treat them,” the senator said. “Unfortunately, Glenwood is not unique,” he went on. “At a Massachusetts hospital owned by Steward, a woman died after giving birth when doctors realized midway through surgery that supplies needed for her treatment had already been withdrawn because of Steward’s financial problems.” The hospital reportedly paid the supplier $2.5 million in unpaid bills.
Additionally, a WSJ investigation uncovered records showing a pest control company found 3,000 live bugs at a hospital in Steward, Florida. In Arizona, a Phoenix-area hospital was without air conditioning during the sweltering heat, and its kitchen was closed for health code violations. The state ordered the shutdown last week.
“The poor financial decisions and gross mismanagement of these hospitals by Dr. De La Torre and his executive team is shocking,” Cassidy said. “Patients’ lives are at stake. The American people deserve answers.”
anger
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-VT) went on to say that the US health care system “was not designed to make patients better, but to make health care managers and stockholders extraordinarily rich.” Designed for. . . perhaps more than anyone else, Ralph De La Torre, CEO of Steward Health Care, reveals the kind of pernicious corporate greed that exists in our health care system.
Sanders lamented how de la Torre’s payments could instead benefit patients and communities, asking: “How many Steward hospitals could have been prevented from closing, how many lives could have been saved, how many health workers would still be doing their jobs? What if Dr. De La Torre spent $150 million on high-quality health care instead of a yacht, two private jets, and a luxury fishing boat?
On July 25, the committee voted 16-4 to subpoena La Torre so they could question him in person. To date, de la Torre has declined to voluntarily appear before the committee and has declined to comment on the WSJ report. The committee’s vote marks the first time since 1981 that it has subpoenaed it.
Separately, Steward and de la Tor are under investigation by the Ministry of Justice over allegations of fraud and corruption in dealing with the running of hospitals in Malta.
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