Policy
Senators say Ralph de la Torre is trying to avoid accountability.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks at the podium with Ellen MacInnis, a registered nurse at St. Elizabeth Medical Center, Sen. Edward Markey and Rep. Lori Trahan at a news conference in Boston on Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre’s refusal to comply with a subpoena. David L Ryan/Globe Staff
BOSTON (AP) — Several political leaders, including Massachusetts Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, attacked the head of embattled health care system Steward Health Care on Thursday for refusing to comply with a subpoena to appear before a Senate committee.
Lawyers for Steward CEO Ralph de la Torre said Wednesday he will not testify before a committee investigating the Dallas-based hospital company’s bankruptcy because a federal court order prohibits him from discussing anything during an ongoing reorganization and settlement effort.
Warren and Markey both dismissed those concerns Thursday, saying de la Torre was trying to avoid accountability.
Steward, which operated about 30 hospitals nationwide, filed for bankruptcy in May. It tried to sell more than a half-dozen hospitals in Massachusetts but received inadequate offers for Carney Hospital in Boston and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in the town of Ayer, both of which closed Saturday. A federal bankruptcy court approved the sale of Steward’s other Massachusetts hospitals on Wednesday.
In a letter Wednesday to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, de la Torre did not rule out testifying before the committee at a later date.
“He’s hiding because he doesn’t want to be accountable to the American people, to Congress, to the patients and the workers of Massachusetts for what he’s done,” Markey said at a news conference Thursday about de la Torre. “He wants to hide and not have to be accountable for what the last five months have revealed.”
Warren said de la Torre could invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination if he “believes the answers will put him at risk of going to prison.”
“Ralph de la Torre is just another rich man who thinks the rules don’t apply to him,” Warren said. “He seems to think he’s above the law and can take whatever he wants without having to answer for the destruction he leaves behind.”
Warren argued that de la Torre’s decision not to appear should result in his ouster as steward.
“I understand it’s very late in the process, but I would like to see someone else who can have an eye on all the information that’s happening confidentially, internally and not being disclosed to the public – someone other than Ralph de la Torre,” she said.
In their letter to Sanders, de la Torre’s lawyers said the Senate committee was seeking to turn the hearing into “a pseudo-criminal proceeding in which they are using the time, not to gather facts, but to condemn Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of public opinion.”
Sanders said in a statement that he would work with other panel members to determine how best to pressure de la Torre for answers.
“Let me be clear: We will not accept this delay. Congress will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and the harm he has caused to hospitals and patients across America,” Sanders said. “This committee intends to move forward with determination to compel Dr. de la Torre to testify about the gross mismanagement of Steward Health Care.”
The committee’s options include convicting De la Torre of criminal contempt, which could result in a trial and prison time; or civil contempt, which would result in fines until he appears in court. Both options would require a Senate vote.
De la Torre also declined invitations to testify at a hearing in Boston earlier this year chaired by Markey.
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