Mary Regan lives five blocks away from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital — and she’d like to keep that proximity to the bitter end.
“I was born at St. Elizabeth’s,” she said. “I had my daughter there. So you know I thought I would probably die there, eventually.”
But that final visit to St. Elizabeth’s is no longer a guarantee. Regan and the thousands who rely on the Brighton Hospital for health care are suddenly facing the possibility it could go out of business.
Steward Health Care, operator of St. E’s and eight other facilities in Massachusetts, is financially struggling — that much the company will acknowledge. It would not confirm published reports indicating Steward is massively in the hole for back rent at St. Elizabeth’s and Carney Hospital in Dorchester — with up to $50 million owed.
Hospitals at risk of closing? Steward Health Care reportedly owes $50M in back rent
“We’ve heard the rumors for a long time,” she said. “And this is scary. Because I have a wonderful primary care physician that I love and I have a cardiac doctor.”