January 23, 2025

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Mass. activates emergency plan amid Steward financial issues

Mass. activates emergency plan amid Steward financial issues

Massachusetts public health officials have activated an “emergency operations plan” to ensure continued access to medical care as the Steward Health Care hospital system faces an increasingly worrying financial outlook.

While Steward’s facilities, including eight hospitals mostly in eastern Massachusetts, remain open, the for-profit company is deeply in debt. State officials, medical providers and patients say they worry about the future of their local health care facilities and the potential loss of affordable and accessible medical treatment.

The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said in a statement Friday that the emergency operations plan included a regional “Incident Command System” to coordinate health care access, keep patients safe, and protect providers’ jobs “in the context of Steward Hospitals’ financial challenges.”

The Incident Command System is “a well-established public health tool” run by the Department of Public Health that brings together state agencies, medical providers, labor organizations, and others in a coordinated response to Stewards’ woes, the statement reads.

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