Steward Health Care wants to close Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer by Aug. 31, almost three months sooner than Massachusetts rules generally allow.
The company asked the judge overseeing its bankruptcy for the end of August closure in a 77-page brief filed late Friday. Massachusetts requires health care operators to give the state 120 days’ notice before closing such facilities, which would normally put the two closures at the end of November.
Steward also revealed in the court filing that the state has agreed to pay $30 million in August to help keep its other six facilities in Massachusetts running until they are transferred to new owners.
The brief was filed after Steward announced Friday it had lined up buyers for those six Eastern Massachusetts hospitals. It did not name the buyers or provide details.
The company said it did not receive any qualified bids for Carney or Nashoba Valley.
In the court filing, Steward said it needed to close Carney and Nashoba Valley soon because it was running out of money to fund their operations. Carney had a loss of $14.7 million through the first five months of the year and Nashoba Valley lost $2.3 million, excluding interest payments, taxes, and some other accounting charges.
“The continued funding of these losses is not sustainable for the Debtors’ estates,” Steward said in the court document. “In addition, it is imperative that the Debtors have the ability to close the facilities expeditiously following announcement of such closure given the potential for disruption to patient care during the closing and transition process, as a result of employee flight, among other things.”
Carney and Nashoba Valley have been rapidly losing patients since Steward filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. Carney currently has just 49 patients and Nashoba Valley 31, according to the filing.
Steward said it informed Massachusetts regulators of the plan to close the hospitals by Aug. 31, and does not expect them to object.
The Healey administration said in a statement Saturday the company must present a responsible closure plan that outlines how it will protect patients. And Robbie Goldstein, Massachusetts’ public health commissioner, said the state will work with Steward to ensure this happens.
Yet, some elected officials from the communities served by the two hospitals are not on board. State Senator Jamie Eldridge, who represents Ayer, said Nashoba Valley needs to remain open to ensure its patients are adequately cared for.
“The request is just outrageous and despicable,” he said.
Under Massachusetts law, operators must give the state 90 days’ notice before closing a type of medical service or an entire facility. And state regulations require an additional 30 days’ notification. This is intended to minimize the fallout from the closure and deal with any issues that arise from it, according to the state. However, closures of other hospitals have sometimes happened more quickly when all patients transferred out sooner.
The earlier closure would give Massachusetts officials and nearby health care providers even less time to prepare for what was already an abrupt conclusion to a long-developing saga. The most profound effect will most likely be felt in emergency rooms and inpatient psychiatric services, both of which are already extremely stretched in most of Eastern Massachusetts.
Carney and Nashoba Valley provide basic medical services to working-class communities that have few other options, according to advocates and politicians from the areas.
Eldridge said other hospitals are a long drive from Nashoba Valley.
In Dorchester and Mattapan, near Carney, it’s more difficult to get to other hospitals without a complex trip.
Eldridge and state Senator Nick Collins, whose district includes Dorchester and Mattapan, sent letters to the Healey administration begging to keep the hospitals open. They said both locations desperately need emergency departments and other hospital services.
“There’s too much at stake, including hundreds of jobs,” Collins said.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association provided the Globe with letters it received from Steward on Friday that gave 60 days’ notice for major changes on 753 jobs at Carney and 490 at Nashoba Valley.
Boston City Councilor John FitzGerald, whose district includes Carney, said the hospital serves a large local Vietnamese population that would be hurt by its closure.
Mayor Michelle Wu said Saturday the city “demands that Steward keep Carney Hospital open for the full 120 days required by state law to allow time to ensure continued access to health services, particularly emergency and acute care, and to protect Carney’s dedicated workers and patients.”
Steward said the hospital closures were regrettable and called the situation “challenging and unfortunate.”
“We will do all we can to ensure a smooth transition for those affected while continuing to provide quality care to the patients we will continue to serve,” the company said.
On Saturday morning, a somber quiet hung over Carney Hospital.
Albert Brooks, 55, recently celebrated 30 years working there as housekeeping shift leader. He said the announcement of the closure came so suddenly that “no one knows anything.”
He said the staff expects to learn in the upcoming week if they can be reassigned to other hospitals.
Herculano Amado, 61, a support staff lead of more than 20 years, said he was planning to retire in five years. Now, he does not know where he’ll work next.
“What I make here is not easy to make at another hospital, to start over,” he said.
Steward was created when a private equity firm converted a chain of struggling Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts into a for-profit venture that, under its leader cardiac surgeon Ralph de la Torre, sought to build a national health care provider.
But a series of financial transactions that included selling the hospital properties and then leasing them back burdened the hospitals with hefty rent payments.
The company said lower reimbursements for government-insured patients, who account for much of its business, were behind its financial struggles. Yet, Steward executives were well paid throughout these troubles. Nine of its top executives each were paid more than $1 million the year before it entered bankruptcy, according to a court filing.
These business pressures caused many of Steward’s hospitals to run short on cash. Some struggled to pay vendors and others ran short on supplies and important medical equipment.
The company filed for bankruptcy in May. It is seeking to sell off many of its hospitals, but the ballooning lease payments to a real estate trust that owns many of the properties complicated the search for new owners.
The six hospitals Steward is planning to keep open and sell are: St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Morton Hospital in Taunton, St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, and Holy Family in Methuen and Haverhill. Norwood Hospital, which has been closed since 2020 because of flood damage, was not included in the sale process.
US Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez is scheduled to review the bids at a hearing in Houston on July 31.
Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman. Sean Cotter can be reached at sean.cotter@globe.com. Follow him @cotterreporter. Alexa Coultoff can be reached at alexa.coultoff@globe.com. Follow her @alexacoultoff.