Steward CEO says he won’t comply with Senate subpoena on hospital closings

BOSTON (AP) — Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre won’t comply with a subpoena to appear before a U.S. Senate committee that is investigating the hospital company’s bankruptcy, his lawyers said Wednesday.

De la Torre needs to remain silent to respect an ongoing hospital reorganization and settlement effort, his lawyers said in a letter to Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. A federal court order prohibits de la Torre from discussing anything during mediation, the lawyers said.

The Dallas-based Steward, which operated about 30 hospitals nationwide, including more than a half-dozen in Massachusetts, declared bankruptcy earlier this year. It has been trying to sell its hospitals in Massachusetts, but received inadequate bids for two of them: Carney Hospital in Boston and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in the town of Ayer, both of which closed last weekend.

A federal bankruptcy court on Wednesday approved the sale of Steward’s other hospitals in Massachusetts.

Lawyers for de la Torre said the U.S. Senate committee is seeking to turn the hearing into “a pseudo-criminal proceeding in which they use the time, not to gather facts, but to convict Dr. de la Torre in the eyes of public opinion.”

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