Should the bill reach Governor Maura Healey\u2019s desk, the maneuver would resolve a remnant of the Steward Health Care bankruptcy saga that two years ago led to two hospital closures and prompted the state to seize St. Elizabeth\u2019s Medical Center in Brighton by eminent domain. Massachusetts is currently flexing its eminent domain powers to take homes as part of the Sagamore Bridge replacement project.<\/p>\n
Convened by Healey, the Norwood Hospital Task Force in a recent report recommended passage of Rogers\u2019 bill to restore access to acute and emergency care to a region of roughly 250,000 people. Since the hospital loss \u201ccrosses municipal boundaries and burdens hospitals well beyond Norwood, it is appropriately addressed by the Commonwealth and should not be the burden of a single town,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n
Task force chair Tony Mazzucco, Norwood\u2019s general manager, said the bill would be \u201clifesaving\u201d for his town.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day our ambulances are driving by that hospital building with sick and dying patients,\u201d Mazzucco said. \u201cIf you have a heart attack in Norwood, or Westwood, or Canton, or Dedham, or Sharon, you\u2019re 40 minutes to a facility that can treat you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norwood Hospital used to be among about two dozen hospitals that could perform an artery-opening procedure to treat major heart attacks. The two hospitals that absorbed the bulk of Norwood\u2019s patients cannot do the procedure, meaning they \u201cmust transport cardiac patients onward to Boston, adding a further delay in circumstances where minutes are decisive,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n
Norwood Hospital closed in June 2020 due to catastrophic flooding. Former Governor Charlie Baker attended a groundbreaking ceremony in November 2021 for the start of construction of a new hospital, but the project stalled in 2024 as Steward stopped paying a contractor and became bankrupt. The site is owned by Steward\u2019s landlord, the Alabama-based real estate investment trust Medical Properties Trust.<\/p>\n
Thousands of soccer fans have flocked to Gillette Stadium, a roughly 15-minute drive from the Norwood site, this summer for FIFA World Cup matches. Mazzucco said \u201cnobody talked about the fact that Norwood Hospital used to be the mass casualty site\u201d for the stadium.<\/p>\n
Negotiations for Mass General Brigham to buy the 11-acre property \u201cfizzled\u201d after MPT first requested $250 million and then ratcheted up its ask to $375 million, the Globe reported last month. Revelations over that unsuccessful deal and MPT\u2019s price tag seem to have fueled the bill\u2019s recent trajectory in the Legislature, Mazzucco said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have operators who have the money and who are interested and willing to do it, but you have a property owner who thinks they\u2019re going to get some absurd amount of money,\u201d Mazzucco said.<\/p>\n
MGB did not respond to questions about whether the health care system would revisit negotiations if the property goes under state control.<\/p>\n
Private property owners whose land is taken by the state must receive \u201creasonable compensation,\u201d according to the Massachusetts Constitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s worth, you know, maybe $75 million as a hospital,\u201d Mazzucco said. \u201cAs just commercial land in Norwood, it\u2019s not worth all that much.\u201d<\/p>\n
He predicted the land-taking could happen \u201csometime this fall, give or take.\u201d Still, Mazzucco acknowledged eminent domain is a complicated legal process.<\/p>\n
An aide to Rogers said the office is \u201cnot aware of any operator that has been selected or any immediate timeline for a taking.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe intent of the bill is to provide the Commonwealth with a mechanism to preserve the hospital property and facilitate its return to service should a qualified operator be identified,\u201d the aide said.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, asked whether the state has immediate plans to take the land, said, \u201cThe administration will review any final legislation that reaches the Governor\u2019s desk.\u201d<\/p>\n
The task force report offered a contingency plan if the legislation doesn\u2019t pan out: the town of Norwood could consider acquiring the land through its own eminent domain authority.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne town taking a property that serves a quarter of a million people and is a statewide issue, it\u2019s really not appropriate,\u201d Mazzucco said. \u201cBut if we have to do it, we will.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Should the bill reach Governor Maura Healey\u2019s desk, the maneuver would resolve a remnant of the Steward Health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-749514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}