FORMERLY PE OWNED
Steward Health Care
Includes Steward Healthcare, Caritas Christi
hospitals · Dallas, TX
- Year Acquired
- 2010
Cerberus bought a Catholic hospital system, drained $800 million, sold the buildings out from under the patients, and walked away before it all collapsed.
What Happened
- Cerberus bought the six-hospital Caritas Christi system for ~$895 million in 2010 — putting up only $246 million of its own cash — then made roughly $800 million over the next decade
- In 2016, Steward sold its hospital real estate to Medical Properties Trust for $1.2 billion and rented the buildings back, using the cash to pay a $484 million dividend to Cerberus — the hospitals no longer owned their own buildings
- As Cerberus completed its exit in 2021, the system paid one more $111 million dividend — this time to its new physician owners, including the CEO, while the hospitals sank
- Filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2024 with over $9 billion in liabilities — the largest hospital system bankruptcy in U.S. history
The Damage Done
- Five hospitals have closed since the May 2024 bankruptcy, including Carney Hospital in Boston and Nashoba Valley Medical Center — thousands of employees laid off across the system
- A new mother died after an emergency at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, where the embolism coils doctors could have used to stop her bleeding had been repossessed weeks earlier because Steward hadn't paid the bill — she had to be transferred to another hospital, where she died, according to a Boston Globe investigation
- Boston EMS reported longer ambulance transport times after the closures, as crews drove further to find open emergency departments
- The Boston Globe's Spotlight team identified at least 15 patients who died after failing to receive accepted standards of care amid Steward's equipment and staffing shortages
Sources
- Lessons from the collapse of Steward Health Care — Brookings(2024-09-01)
- Steward hospital closures: 'Nothing that the state can do,' Healey says — Axios Boston(2024-07-29)
- The Pillaging of Steward Health Care — PESP(2024-05-01)
- Steward's medical devices were repossessed. Weeks later, a new mother died. — Boston Globe(2024-01-25)
- Inside Steward Health Care: a practice of neglect — Boston Globe Spotlight(2024-09-06)