Falling gracelessly from the rarefied air of Ivy League medicine, Steward Health Care CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre was conspicuously absent at a Congressional hearing last week about the bankruptcy of his hospital management company which operated several vital Massachusetts hospitals that have now failed.
The Harvard-trained doctor’s chair remained empty while members of the U.S. Congress eviscerated him in effigy, and he may now face civil and criminal contempt charges.
U.S. senators called De la Torre the poster child for healthcare corporate greed and vowed to punish him for amassing personal wealth at the expense of patients and for failing to answer to federal authorities for his actions.
Senators released damning reports that alleged that Steward Health Care put profit before patients. The senators masterfully painted a caricature of a greedy hospital CEO who bought a $40 million mega-yacht while his hospitals struggled with supply shortages and poor patient outcomes. There was no verification that Dr. De la Torre had named his yacht the “GMH EMR”.
The reports specifically allege that hospitals under Steward's management were "gutted" in pursuit of maximum profits while patients suffered from extended emergency wait times, deteriorating facilities and higher mortality rates.
"They (the patients) were grandparents, parents, children, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, friends, community members. But for those corporations — private equity — those profits came first, meaning the patients came last… Steward-owned hospitals harmed health care access, quality of care, patient and worker safety, and worker job security," the reports stated.
Steward hospitals around the country have left a trail of unpaid medical vendors, at times risking a shortage of potentially life-saving supplies or creating unsafe patient and worker environments.
Last month, patients as young as five years old had to be emergently transferred out of a Steward hospital in Phoenix, Arizona after its air conditioning system failed and soaring temperatures inside the facility threatened life and safety.
Arizona's Health Department shut down the hospital and officials revealed the facility was consistently understaffed and found "multiple issues with the HVAC systems, elevators, and kitchen equipment with no documentation of repairs being made."
Meanwhile, here in the Western Pacific, Guam Memorial Hospital’s leadership
chair was figuratively empty during the last GovGuam budget hearings where highly-paid hospital administrators remained fixated on payroll politics rather than safe patient care.
For almost a decade, GMH has maintained an unsafe, structurally unsound, dirty hospital with multiple issues with the HVAC system, according to the national Joint Commission for Hospital Accreditation and the US Army Corps of Engineers.
GMH is the only obstetric Labor and Delivery medical facility for all pregnant American civilians on Guam. Despite also being the official hospital of the local indigenous people, a CHamoru infant is three times more likely to die after being born at GMH than a white baby born in any other hospital in America.
For the past 6 years, Guam’s infant mortality rate has horrifically been twice the national average. A baby born at GMH has an infant mortality rate of 10.7 per 1,000. The numbers are much worse if the baby is brown. CHamoru infants die at a rate of 28.5 per 1,000; followed by Chuukese at 16.5; Filipinos die at a rate of 7.5 per 1000; and whites at 2.25.
My first thought was that Guam’s high infant death rate is due to our main medical facility (GMH) being a “forever and ever … under-resourced place,” as one doctor put it. In other words, GMH is focused on amassing personal wealth for GovGuam employees at the expense of patients. GMH simply does not provide medicine and supplies for normal standard of pre and postnatal care for our infants and their mothers. Instead, it is addicted to feeding its politically bloated payroll. Note: Guam’s maternal mortality rate is also higher than the rest of the nation.
Also, GMH actively enacts policy to functionally discourage providing lifesaving measures for babies born up to 27 weeks and weighing up to 750 grams, a gestational age the National Institute of Health states has a 70 percent chance of survival. Against all known national American standards, GovGuam is rationing care to newborn babies and their mothers to continue funding payroll politics obscenely .
Through their GMH political proxies, Guam’s governor and senators have repeatedly decided not to try too hard to save sick babies. Instead, Guam’s politicians are more than happy to give 22 percent pay increases to nonessential government workers of whom too many smoke tobacco cigarettes during pregnancy and purchase crystal methamphetamine with their GovGuam paychecks.
Rather than recognize the moral bankruptcy of perpetuating 200 nonessential employee positions, GMH threatened to shut down hospital medical services and stop hiring nurses if they didn’t get more money to fund political patronage employee salaries.
GMH public relations has claimed that they have plenty of qualified doctors who can safely deliver babies at GMH even if the baby is sick and dying. Just recently, GMH said that they had more than 10 obstetric doctors on their staff to assist and support the 220 babies who are born at GMH every month.
Despite the reassurances, a stunning number of babies appear to be dying on Guam every year. An average of 32 babies on Guam died before their first birthday each year between 2017 and 2021, according to a recent report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2021, the worst year for infant mortality on the island, Guam saw 41 infant deaths.
The sad reality is that too many babies die on Guam before reaching their first birthday. In regards to dead babies, GMH has cultivated a culture of excuses, alibis, and lies. Motivated by political greed, GMH executives have institutionalized obstetric incompetence and an entrenched tolerance of failure.
Genesis 4:10 And the Lord said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother 's blood is crying to me from the ground.”
Subscribe to
our digital
monthly edition
Comments