11.19.2024 Brown University Health Press Conference

one two three great

congratulations the mayor's office the city council okay first of all I want to uh welcome everybody to Brown Health formerly St an's hospital it's a great day for the city of Fall River we're getting new Strength into a great Southend institution and it's very very important they got a great team here and they do a great job and one of the key people that helped to put this whole

thing together is down here today to see firsthand what's going on in this hospital she's a very very important factor in all the progress going on in the city of Fall River and she took a keen interest in St ANS to make sure this hospital was stabilized got get stronger and move forward and I want to introduce my very very good friend Governor Mora hey oh

thanks thanks so much mayor it's uh great to be back in in Fall River great to be here today at St an's in particular and uh and great here to be here to celebrate something really really special I'm delighted to be here with mayor Coogan who's done great things for the city and continues to do great things I'm really happy to also see chair Mike Rodricks who we work with on

a lot uh rep Carol Fiola and representative Paul Schmid um a lot of work the last couple weeks um especially uh Economic Development climate Bill all sorts of good things coming to my desk for Signature and I'm grateful to our legislative partners for all of their support I'm also very happy to be here today with brown university health president and CEO John Fernandez um St an's president and chief nursing officer

Carol Billington and um I just want to thank Carol in particular who led us through a tour just uh just now throughout the hospital and um it was a great chance for me to see up close and personal the wonderful and incredible staff and team here at St an's I'm also delighted to be joined by Tim Foley executive president of 1199 SEIU um work very closely with SEIU and m&a throughout this whole Steward ordeal

and uh the stars of our Administration our great secretary of Health and Human Services Kate Walsh and our commissioner at the Department of Public Health Dr Robbie Goldstein we started the year uh with with bad news we got news that Stuart was going out of business and going bankrupt and that meant um serious issues for communities around the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and as governor

i t took it as my responsibility and our Administration took it as their responsibility to make sure that we were doing everything that we could to save jobs to protect patients and protect the stability of the healthcare market and um we got to work working with so many partners and I'm really proud of what we were able to accomplish together we're America's healthc care leader

Massachusetts is a number one in healthc Care number one in education number one in Innovation we were just ranked the best state to have a baby to raise a family to work if you're a woman and we're America's leader when it comes to actual Health Care coverage those are great things and that happens because of the work of people like those in the room today we lead for a reason and it

is the dedication and the talent the dedication and the talent that I just saw on the floors that I was able to walk through this afternoon it's a collective commit commment shared to ensuring access to Affordable Health Care not as a privilege but as a right in our state and a right that we take seriously our Administration does our legislature does and our providers and our employees and Workforce do as well

and drawing on all of those strengths I'm proud that in Massachusetts we were able to do something that no other state was able to do there were Steward facilities in states around the country but only in Massachusetts were we able to do what we did which was to save hospitals to protect jobs and to protect the stability of a health care market and access to critically needed care

that includes 1500 jobs right here at St an and in addition to saving 13,000 jobs we also did something important and got a bad unethical operator out of Massachusetts once and for all now this result was by no means predetermined it took an incredible amount of hard work um and perseverance it took the expertise and dedication of the teams at the Department of Public Health the incident command structure it

took the passionate advocacy of local and state officials and legislators it took the determination of our uh Workforce including 1199 SEIU and the Massachusetts Nurses Association workers um represented by uh those unions and workers just generally who stepped forward to talk about the impact of all of this and I took the support of our hospitals our health care plans like and our community healthc care centers and

ultimately it uh um it's uh because in this instance we have a wonderful and reput provider reputable provider like Brown University Health who's stepping up to ensure a quality of care and access to care moving forward and I am so grateful uh to John and his team and to Carol for all the work that was done to make that happen and all the great work that's going to happen in the weeks

and months ahead we also established working groups as you know to revitalize Healthcare access in communities served by nishoba Valley and Carney hospital but I want to thank everybody who we've worked with and continue to work with and in a time when our country is divided um and facing any number of challenges this was a crisis in Massachusetts but we showed what's possible when we work together as a team

when we work in Partnership for a greater good everybody draws on their strength right and everybody is willing to work together and we pulled something off that's pretty pretty special so I take that as a lesson um and as an affirmation about what is possible and again I want to thank the nurses the doctors the team the staff at St an's and across our state who make us the very best state for healthc care in this

country and that's not to say that we don't have work to do as governor I am focused on lowering costs on creating more housing for residents we can drive down housing costs and yes working on making health care more affordable um these are all things to work on including addressing some of the disparities that we see in healthcare when it comes to zip code and race ethnicity all sorts of things but with

all that said it is important to take a moment and appreciate what is so powerful and so good here in our state and know that it comes about because we have tremendous expertise tremendous talent and people who are willing to work for the greater good and as Governor I am grateful and in GR ude I now want to bring forward um a friend um uh a colleague who I I've come to know from

other parts of the state but I'm super excited that he is bringing his talents and compassion and passion and expertise a real team player and a great leader um for for the south coast and this is uh John

Fernandez so on behalf of St an's Hospital Governor welcome please come back and hear about all the things we're going to do in the future which are going to be great um I want to say a few special welcomes the governor covered almost everybody I had on my list but I thought it would be important to recognize uh secretary Walsh who I've had the pleasure of working with and her

whole team it took a village to make this come uh true and especially one of her colleagues Chris Harding who I know is not here uh uh commissioner Goldstein I think we have our Senators we have our whole delegation here and Tim Foley was also really helpful all throughout the process of making this actually happen you know I wanted to reflect back to last week um I was at the health policy

commission and I was sitting next to the folks from Boston Medical Center and Lawrence General who were also part of this uh effort for the hospitals of Massachusetts and um the one thing that I wanted that I wanted to make sure people knew and that they wanted everybody to know is that it's the people at St an's and at Morton the staff the nurses the doctors that persevered through a very very tough

time I cannot even imagine how difficult it was it's hard enough to deliver care but it's even harder under the circumstances that they were under so that commitment to me reminded me and I know reminded many other people why they got into Healthcare which is to take care of people so they deserve the big gratitude here so thank you all so I was going to go on I I often tell

this joke you probably some of you have heard it is that my I'm the Son of a Preacher and a politician so I have many pages I could go over here but I think the governor covered a lot and uh there's a lot of work ahead and we look forward to everybody's support and getting that done I like to focus on GSD which is get stuff done and the people here at St an's have welcomed Brown

Health warmly and we look forward to working with everybody here to have a thriving health system in this area so now I'm going to turn it over to my friend and secretary K Walsh thank you thank you John you I was thinking about what to say here and I was uh thinking about lots of people talk about hospitals as anchor institution and and I said oh that's perfect you know we're

here in a nautical town and that's to the extent of what I know about anything seaf fairing I get seasick on the Staten Island Ferry so uh but I uh but when I was walking around today I really was sort of struck by and hearing the stories of the people who were born here the people whose entire careers have been built here and I'm so happy that we were a small part of of of of saving

this um very very important ship for this community or I'm now fractured my nautical metaphors I I wanted to say two other things um the first is we would not be here if the people standing behind me and the people we saw on the floors and people who work in ICS and practices all around this region didn't stick with this Hospital there'd be nothing to buy or sell and so I just

cannot thank you enough for your commitment to the patients and to the region because with that we can build a a a really bright future and the last thing I say is John and I had the opportunity to work together earlier in our careers and you guys should just buckle up he's a bundle of energy he's a lot of ideas he you know he's the guy when when we were working together the

budget would be done and he'd say I have an idea and I'm like oh no so um this will be a very busy thriving exciting part of this community and I can't wait to to uh come back down and congratulate you all again thank you and I'm supposed to introduce well I'm we'll introduce because man who needs no introduction well that is true a person who needs no introduction and somebody who's been an incredible

partner in the last 23 months of the work uh of of our Administration um I'm uh ever grateful to uh chair Rodricks for uh not not least to wish the economic development bill that's very exciting for the south coast in this region and and exciting for the entire State and um thank you uh once again for your leadership thank you thank you Governor good afternoon everyone it's really a great honor to be

here and I'm joined by uh without doubt the greatest legislative delegation at the state house and my colleagues representative Carol Fiola representative Paul Schmid representative alen Sylvia who could not be here who's actually this is his legislative uh District uh and we work tirelessly every day to ensure that um Fall River uh gets what it deserves and our message today is basically thank you

to Governor Healey to her amazing team secretary Walsh commissioner Goldstein because if it was not for them we would not be here today I can tell you they work tiously 24/7 trying to put everything together to ensure that St an's hospital now Brown University Health remains part of the fabric here in Fall River a hospital that's been part of my immediate and extended fames uh extended family for my

entire life like so many people that are in this room um so thank you uh Governor secretary Waltz commissioner Goldstein also thank you to John Fernandez an amazing amazing gentleman he is bringing with him a world of resources Talent uh energy uh Vitality um that's going to make sure that St an's Hospital Brown University helps continues to thrive here in the city of Fall River and we all know that any organization

irregardless if it's health care or manufacturing service industry is only as good as its employees so thank you to all of the employees of St an hospital for standing strong over the last through few months we know how difficult it has been uh and no one knows that more than the next gentleman that I'm going to introduce who uh Works tirelessly every day to ensure that all of your these employees backs are

covered someone whom I've worked with for many many years at the State House that does an amazing job a very good friend Tim Foley Tim thank you Mr chairman anything else you'd like to to say about me yeah um uh again thank you for that introduction and uh I'm as the chairman said my name is Tim Foley I'm the Executive Vice President of 1199 seciu we're a healthcare workers union representing over 85,000 Home Care

nursing home and Hospital workers across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and represent over 12200 workers both at St an's hospital here and also Morton which I think is an important story to tell about the Morton Hospital acquisition as well from Brown Health um on behalf of those uh members that work tirelessly every single day to deliver highquality Community Health Care I want to say

thank you uh to the governor to secretary to the commissioner and to our elected leaders who stand behind us today for all their help and support and advocacy and Leadership and yes a lot of pushing uh to get this across the Finish Line to protect an important community hospital and April 25th of 2024 1199 Community allies the mayor elected officials behind us uh had a rally across the street at Kennedy Park

calling for a solution to ensure that this community hospital stayed open for the patients and the residents of this community and the surrounding communities and it's a great pleasure that we're here today to celebrate that that call for action and engagement was met uh by our state leaders here today but also uh by Brown University healthcare by stepping up uh and ensuring that this Hospital continues to

provide care for the community that they care most about so on behalf of our members I want to say thank you and and clearly I want to Echo a lot of the comments that have been made today about the healthcare Workforce that's here with us uh and who aren't here with us doing their job to take care of patients as we know uh these systems run on uh those workers and their commitment and

sacrifice to ensure that these transactions move forward to maintain access to care should be uh celebrated by all of us and I just want to give a good warm thank you to the healthcare workers that did all the work that they did to get us here today and it's with a great pleasure that I invite some of those uh workers here to to the podium to share their stories about the care that they deliver every

single day at this hospital and hospitals surrounding community so Daniela Ferrera Joe Peterson and Aaron giri come to the podium thank you good evening everyone thank you for coming thank you for having us here I am very grateful for being to come up to this Podium and tell you just how grateful we are are for brown Health to have taken us over to be giving us this chance to push forward through all of

the troubling times that we've had since covid um that's taken a lot for the community to push through um I am here with everyone here and it was a long struggle and our community felt it really strongly um and as you can tell the system kind of went down a little bit but with brown being here and giving us the chance I'm so happy that we are going to be bigger and better than ever

um I am grateful that I stand here before you as a strong CNA that has been here for 12 long years and am a part of this community every day and I am so so so happy to see where Brown is going to bring us and bring the community to a stronger stand with Healthcare and bring us to such an amazing place and thank you good evening my name is Joe Joe

Peterson um I'm a health unit coordinator on St uh Katherine's unit uh I haven't been with the hospital very long but when I first brought on I noticed a culture of professionalism accountability and charity working here and it's such a joy to be part of this culture to be in the working in healthcare and I am excited to see where Brown will lead us and just to bring this culture with them also everyone in

this room is accountable to the person standing next to them we're accountable to our patients at this community hospital and it just keeps going up from there all the way to the governor and if we can keep this in mind I know that Santa's hospital will continue to grow and it will grow into something beautiful thank you hello good afternoon everyone my name my name is Erin I've been a nurse

here at St ANS for 27 years I know shocking I look so young but but really um I started here as an oncology nurse I now work on a general Med surge unit and I am a proud employee of s an's hospital um we have been through many changes and challenges in the last few years um probably starting with covid and more recently with everything with Stuart um however um I

will say that St an's is a very unique place to work um I was a little surprised to do this today but I was advised to speak from my heart and that I will do because St ANS has a lot of heart um we are a family um and we have wonderfully dedicated employees here to take care of our community our patients our family each other as well if I may

say because without that I don't think many of us would still be here um I am so grateful for everyone to have helped us get to this point our leaders here at St an's Hospital are phenomenal um and I look forward to what brown health is going to bring to us it's very exciting and um yes I look forward to flipping into a new chapter and seeing what's coming our way thank

you I forgot one thing I forgot one thing I've worked in hospital since 1979 in three states probably longer than I care or should admit I have never seen a cleaner Hospital I got to say congratulations to don't M it thanks secretary and um thank you to everybody here and especially to Danielle and Joe and and and Aaron for those uh closing remarks we're happy to take any questions on topic governor and

John um now that the ownership has been transferred for a number of weeks now at the Stewart hospitals I'm curious from both of you do you did you find the hospitals once the ownership transitioned in worse shape than you expected better shape about what you expected now that Steward's out and the new operators are in well I'm going to let secretary Walsh uh speak to that and certainly to John but I just want to

tell again reiterate how um excited I am about this transformation about this transition uh about how optimistic it leaves me when I think about the work that we can do together and that's work by the way that is regional we're talking about healthc care right now down on the beautiful South Coast and uh you know I think about Rhode Island the relationship between Rhode Island and Massachusetts that's so important we

have a wonderful relationship happening with clean energy I celebrated with legislators and union members from Rhode Island this morning on what we're going to do together and win so you know um while we're different states here in New England we all generally speaking root for the same sports teams right and we all um you know know what it means to work together and I'm really really excited about that

great thank you yes we do root for the same teams even though I grew up in Philadelphia but we won't go into that um to answer your question I would say we found it as we thought but the really pleasant surprise is the people were better than we thought and that was already here and we went to here it's been absolutely incredible watch the hard work led by Carol and the team and

the positions and nurses of it's been like how how can we fix the next thing and that's that's to me was I don't I don't want to say it was a surprise but it sure was great um to have everybody sort of Leaning we've only been at this for 6 weeks or so so lots to do and with lots to do we needed all the help we could get so I don't know if uh Kate you

want to add to that maybe be too good of finances I yeah no I think that um have great faith in look I mean you know we don't know what the future's going to hold but I think the uh commitment to people you know when when when uh commissioner go and I were kind of face with this challenge our first step was okay can we what can we keep open how can we make

sure that people get the care they need and how can we support that so what we really the finances are we put the buying power of the state of Massachusetts behind the hospitals that we knew needed to be in those communities and we created regional response this is you know this is this in this region there are great hospitals you guys are really lucky and we are you know supportive of of helping them grow

and care for people and um I think the there are some surprises and we will help the acquirers weather these uh Capital challenges I I think that um I mean Carol said it best Kate you saw the best floors so there are some that need that need additional work hopefully there'll be places we need to expand um we have an aging population we have young people who want to grow and raise

families here and Revitalize the city this hospital is a big part of that and I'm just really I I really and having worked with Chan and other settings you guys will be really busy before you know it I'm just telling you you heard it here for me first question Governor um now that you've gone through this whole year getting six hospitals under new new uh management but also two hospitals closed

how would you assess the um overall health of the of the hospital system in Massachusetts right well um you know I think that we know across this country that Healthcare is challenging right now there are serious issues when it comes to Workforce across this country I testified last week you were there at the um cost Tren hearing you know I don't know a family out there that um wishes they couldn't get appointment

sooner for Primary Care right for Behavioral Health that's not just a Massachusetts phenomena that that's happening around the country um we also know um here and around the country there are disparities that exist uh far too long along uh lines of poverty uh and income inequality um race um I look at Massachusetts as a microcosm we have rural communities right so you know this Rob there are challenges in

healthcare which is also why I think this is a time for Massachusetts leadership I'm proud of the fact that we're the first state in the country to have universal healthcare long before the ACA we made that happen here in Massachusetts and changed lives as result we are the state with the highest rate of coverage for people in terms of insurance and we lead in healthcare and life sciences and Innovation I think

this year you know I just want to go back um both with uh gratitude and with a sense of Pride uh for what we were able to do in terms of saving six out of eight H Steward hospitals 13,000 jobs that's important we also as an Administration secretary Walsh will speak to this we've done things like um increased the number of Community Health uh care settings and services and that's

that's been really impactful we've done a lot with community behavioral health so a lot of good work Rob has happened there's a lot more to do um the legislature again I'm grateful recently uh sent me a wonderful bill I signed on maternal Health making sure that women are getting access to the kinds of care that they need throughout the course of a pregnancy making sure that they have screenings

covered for postpartum depression and the like so important stuff that's for sure and you know having been attorney general having endured years of Ralph Dori and Steward's Antics having had to sue him to try to get him to come clean with financials it's a huge accomplishment for this state that Ralph dilator is probably under indictment and out of business and then we've got great operators

who are here um to match the the and befitting of the of the work ethic and the compassion and the care that our health care Workforce uh brings every day that's a good thing no I've been in politics long enough to know what the governor said no but I I would say that um you know we have a lot to work on but we have an incredibly strong base to build from and I think

I'll just call out one point that the governor made you know EHS and our teams get a lot of credit for kind of architecting this deal we could not have done that without the colleagues in of of the in the mass Hospital Association Mass Association for health plan as we were worried about access particularly in some of the hardest hit Ste Steward communities we created you know un unfettered access to urgent care that

meant insurance companies forgoing uh co-pays that they could collect we did a a lot of things that were very sort of tactical behind the scenes kind of wonky people like me and Robbie care about them but aren't really great sound bites but it but it preserved it preserved access and capacity as we were transitioning these hospitals so I think we have to keep doing that work together

and we can't you know if the state can't solve these problems it needs to be a partnership okay where does the de currently stand that steart Health left is brown Health covering that or are you all working with the state kind of clear all that up where's the yeah I mean there's I mean step the mic yeah this is my when I I said at a previous hearing that I was taking

bankruptcy for dummies and got in a lot of trouble but the one good thing about bankruptcy is the debt goes away so these hospitals come into Brown health or into Lawrence General unencumbered by previous debts which is is a blank sheet but they also don't come with any operating Capital so Brown has to make investments in keeping the place running until the services that they're

providing right now today until they get paid for so that's about probably 90 days of working capital that that that that that brown and um Brown health is is providing to keep these hospitals open and we are enormously grateful for them stepping up last question Governor I'm curious if uh this at one time was a for-profit hospital it is now a non for-profit and from what I understand

this is going to cost the city of PA River a seven figure sum now is there a chance that what happened in Somerset with Reggie when the power plants closed could that be that same ideal work here well you got to help me you got to walk that through with me maybe it's late in the day but you're gonna I I'll tell you what um I um I think it's short answer is no

the short answerers you want to just answer this you can speak to Reggie too no I mean I Mr Mayor I mean you you've known that we were I mean I think that I think of it as more of a the specific the not for-profit status is really important to the economic underpinnings of St ANS it allows for philanthropy it allows to participate in federal programs like the 340b program which

helps people get access to medicines at the same cost that the federal government acquires them and it keeps this vibrant organization open and thriving which I think will help the tax base of this great City but nobody is going to be writing a check to the city of Fall River uh like like like Stuart allegedly did until they stopped than is that okay yeah that's fine okay

okay I will say I will say that um in my conversations with John Fernandes he understands the uh financial burden being placed on the city of Fall River and we're working together to look at Arrangements that can benefit the city longterm and benefit Brown heal in Fall River this is a great partnership and we'll do everything we can to strengthen it I guarantee you that thank you that's

great thank you and in Broad Strokes just a a public service announcement you know make sure you seek care um I know there's been an uptick in utilization people coming here I think in part because there's a sense of you know now things are we've got you know the the the ship has been steered and so it's just to say as we Face the winter and cold and flu season and and everything

else this is a place with wonderful providers who are ready to provide wonderful uh care make sure you get your vaccines right um and as you can see um I did my job as governor and got the best team around me right people like Kate Walsh um and that's why no matter what comes with the next administration at the federal level I'm confident in Massachusetts we will work together we

will take care of one another and we will do great things thank you

great to see you