Steward Health CEO, who was a no-show at Senate hearing, will resign
After the Senate unanimously voted to hold Dr. Ralph de la Torre in criminal contempt after he declined to testify before a Committee on his role in the hospital’s collapse, he will step down tomorrow.
Just weeks after Senate Committee Chair Bernie Sanders called Steward Health Care CEO the poster child for “outrageous corporate greed” after he failed to testify before the Senate committee on his role in the hospital’s collapse in May, Dr. Ralph de la Torre will step down on Oct. 1.
In a statement, the Dallas-based company announced on Saturday the controversial CEO, who is believed to hold a majority of shares in Steward Health Care, would no longer serve as its CEO and chairman as part of an agreement in principle reached earlier this month.
The CEO had been held in criminal contempt by the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which voted to approve civil and criminal contempt resolutions against Dr. de la Torre for refusing to testify about cost-cutting decisions at the group’s 31 hospitals before it filed for bankruptcy.
Dr. de la Torre, a former heart surgeon, “has amicably separated from Steward on mutually agreeable terms,” and “he will continue to be a tireless advocate for the improvement of reimbursement rates for the underprivileged patient population,” said Rebecca Kral, a spokesperson for de la Torre.
Last week, the Senate unanimously voted to hold de la Torre in criminal contempt of Congress after he declined to attend a Sept. 12 hearing before the Senate HELP Committee, which was probing Steward’s financial troubles. De la Torre had been subpoenaed to attend the hearing. The vote means his failure to comply with a Senate committee subpoena will be referred to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia for criminal prosecution.
Steward, the largest privately owned hospital network in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy in May, seeking to sell all of its hospitals and address $9 billion in debt. At its peak, Steward owned 33 hospitals in nine states, however, it had sold several hospitals since that bankruptcy filing, including three in Florida’s Space Coast area to Orlando Heatlh.
Related: Senate committee to vote on contempt for Steward CEO, a no-show at hearing
“Dr. de la Torre urges continued focus on this mission and believes Steward’s financial challenges put a much-needed spotlight on Massachusetts’ ongoing failure to fix its healthcare structure and the inequities in its state system,” his spokesperson said.
In August, Steward Health reached an agreement with Rural Healthcare Group to purchase Stewardship Health for $245 million, subject to bankruptcy court approval.