Ralph de la Torre is out as the CEO of Steward Health Care. That’s a good thing. But what a disaster he has left behind.
The announcement of his resignation comes just days after the U.S. Senate approved a measure intended to hold the former heart surgeon in criminal contempt for refusing to testify before a congressional panel about his company’s financial woes.
Steward sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May for its 30-hospital chain, including nine in Massachusetts. De la Torre has a lot of explaining to do. A Boston Globe investigative series found that de la Torre spent corporate funds to purchase two luxury yachts and a private jet, using both on frequent vacations to exotic locations.
He sold the property that the hospitals had, rewarding himself and other top administrators with hefty bonuses while leaving the company with high rent payments, according to the newspaper’s reporting. Meanwhile, the hospitals — and patients — suffered. Staffing shortages were frequent, and suppliers cut off deliveries to the hospital due to lack of payment, the Globe said.
It got so bad that nurses used shipping boxes instead of small caskets for dead infants, the investigative series reported. Yes, Ralph de la Torre needs to answer for that level of greed and corruption. Five of the nine hospitals — including Morton Hospital in nearby Taunton — were sold as of Tuesday.
Another, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston, was seized by the state. And two other facilities, Carne.
