News that Steward Health Care planned to close Nashoba Valley Medical Center at the end of August arrived with the force of an earthquake just as the Press began its summer break.
News of the closure has brought into focus the hospital’s importance to patients and municipalities in North Central Massachusetts, not to mention the loss of 400 jobs and the stress the closing will bring to the region’s already overburdened hospitals.
Gov. Maura Healey and her administration say the matter is out of their hands. “This really isn’t up to me. This is all on Steward and the lenders at this point,” Healey said Monday, according to the Boston Globe.
Such protestations from the administration are maddening, to say the least, suggesting that perhaps Nashoba is seen as a necessary sacrifice to save other hospitals in the Steward system, a facility not worthy of the state’s attention. But local stakeholders think otherwise.
There have been demonstrations and press conferences in support of Nashoba in Ayer and at the State House in Boston. The Ayer and Groton select boards and the Massachusetts Nurses Association have urged the governor to declare a health emergency and, in the words of a recent nurses association press release, “exercise state and municipal power under that declaration to prevent closures while viable bidders for all the Steward facilities are found and secured.”
The Devens Enterprise Commission recently joined the chorus of opposition, detailing the negative impact the hospital’s closure will have on the state’s own efforts to grow the business and residential communities there. In a letter signed by Chair Bill Marshall, the commission asked the Department of Health to “explore all feasible options for the hospital to remain in operation … and protect and expand health care in the Nashoba Valley.”
Nashoba began its life as a community hospital; community pressure alone can’t save it, but it’s important. The Department of Health held a public hearing at Devens Thursday. One could hope that the hearing might have shaken the state out of its seeming nonchalance toward Nashoba Valley Medical Center. We encourage readers to make their views known, and to watch for the Press’ online reporting on the hearing.
