Judge on sales of 5 Steward hospitals in Mass.: ‘There’s real people sitting in beds’

A federal bankruptcy court judge indicated Wednesday he would clear the way for Steward Health Care to sell five Massachusetts hospitals to new owners.

At a hearing in US Bankruptcy Court in Houston, Judge Christopher Lopez said his final decision would come later in the day.

“I’m really leaning towards approving the sale,” Lopez said. “This is the best deal that’s on the table, and that’s saying a lot. There’s been an extensive process.”

Lopez noted, “there’s real people sitting in (hospital) beds right now.”

Steward is seeking court approval to sell St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Holy Family Hospital in Methuen and Haverhill, Morton Hospital in Taunton and St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River.

The five hospitals together would sell for $343 million, with the vast majority going to real estate, and a small fraction toward hospital operations. But Steward’s attorneys noted that the costs of closing the sales would exceed any proceedings the company receives.

State and federal officials have voted their approval for the deals. But there was a strong objection from a group of Steward’s lenders, who considered they’re owed a share of the sale proceeds.

Michael Price, an attorney representing the group of lenders who helped finance Steward’s bankruptcy, said the lenders should not be asked to take “zero dollars.”

“We don’t want this sale to blow up unless it absolutely has to,” he said.

Candace Arthur, a lawyer for Steward, noted the for-profit health system would lose $17 million on the Massachusetts hospital sales. Still, she said, it is important for the deals to be approved, because the alternative to selling the hospitals would be closing them, or continuing to operate them “to the detriment” of the company and its hospitals in other states.