Steward promised to rebuild its hospital in Norwood. The town is still waiting

An ambulance backed into the bay of Norwood’s fire station after returning from another medical emergency. So far that late April morning, paramedics were called to help a pregnant woman in pain, an older woman who’d fallen, an older man with trouble breathing.

“It's been nonstop all day,” Alexander Rose, a firefighter and paramedic, said just a few hours into his 24-hour shift. “This is how it is every day here.”

The job for paramedics like Rose became more taxing after flooding triggered the sudden shutdown of Norwood Hospital four years ago, during the early months of the COVID pandemic. The hospital was supposed to be rebuilt, but construction stalled as its operator, Steward Health Care, ran into mounting financial problems and then filed for bankruptcy. It has yet to reopen.

So every time first responders get called to an emergency they must drive farther — sometimes an extra 20 miles — to hospitals in other communities like Newton, Needham, Brockton and Boston. That means patients are forced to spend more time in the back of an ambulance before they reach an emergency room.

“If you have a patient who’s bleeding out, or trauma, or if there's an airway issue — it's a lot of pressure, and we definitely have to elevate ourselves and rise to the occasion,” Rose said.

Some residents drive themselves to the address of Norwood Hospital only to find it isn’t there, Rose said. Then, unsure what to do, they call 911.

Norwood Hospital closed under unusual circumstances. But its story offers a warning now that all of Steward's facilities face an uncertain future. The Dallas-based, for-profit hospital company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this month.

As Steward puts much of its business up for sale, the fate of its eight Massachusetts hospitals remains unclear. Public officials, health care workers and community advocates fear some ultimately could close — even as emergency departments across the state grapple with backlogs and long waits for care.

As Norwood reels from the loss of its community hospital, they worry other cities and towns could suffer a similar fate.

“I'd like to see that hospital rebuilt yesterday. ... The community needs it. We need it.”

Norwood Fire Chief Timothy Bailey

“It's caused a huge strain on the system,” Rose said. “It’s been tough.”

The Norwood Fire Department runs the town's 911 emergency response system, which receives about 5,000 medical calls a year. Each call takes longer than it did when Norwood Hospital was open. The longer drives, combined with wait times at emergency departments, means one medical call can tie up an ambulance for a couple hours.

Norwood Fire Chief Timothy Bailey said his crews rely almost daily on mutual aid, or help from neighboring communities’ first responders. He said the absence of the local hospital is felt beyond town lines — straining fire departments across the region.

“I'd like to see that hospital rebuilt yesterday,” he said. “The delay is not helping us in any way. We'd just like to see it get done. The community needs it. We need it.”

Town officials said Norwood taxpayers are spending millions of dollars on additional costs including new ambulances — which run about $450,000 per truck — as well as vehicle maintenance, fuel and overtime.

Norwood Hospital used to see around 40,000 patients in the emergency department annually, and admitted roughly 10,000, according to data the state Center for Health Information and Analysis compiled for WBUR. The hospital was profitable, according to CHIA data.

The hospital was also an economic driver for the town. It stood in the community for a century, until the rainstorm in June 2020 that sent water gushing into the building and forced the evacuation of patients.

“It was surreal,” said Joan Ballantyne, who worked as an intensive care nurse in Norwood. She recalled going to the building weeks after the flood to pick up her belongings — a spare pair of clogs, extra scrubs, a couple of books. “They went in the bin,” she said. “They all got soaked and had to be thrown out.”

The hospital’s closure displaced more than 1,000 jobs, including Ballantyne’s. She moved to a different Steward hospital, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, and plans to retire in the coming months.

“I certainly would have gone back [to Norwood],” she said. “I really enjoyed working there. But now, it’s too late.”

Norwood Hospital was small compared to the sprawling medical centers of Boston. But emergency department nurse Kathy Reardon said it had the staff and equipment to treat heart patients who needed cardiac catheterization, something not every hospital can do.

“We had it down to a science: One, two, three, and off to the cath lab they went,” she said.

Reardon, who worked at Norwood Hospital for 32 years and now works at Steward’s Morton Hospital in Taunton, said nurses noticed that something wasn’t right with Steward’s finances several years ago. She said she had trouble ordering supplies, including paper for the electrocardiogram device that charts patients' heartbeats, and tubing needed to administer certain medications.

“If this [Steward hospital] system crashes, it would be an absolute catastrophe for this state.”

Kathy Reardon, an emergency department nurse

Reardon worries about how the financial crisis at Steward will affect patients and health care workers across the state. Already, many hospitals are so crowded patients routinely receive care in emergency department hallways. Norwood’s closure only exacerbated crowding at other nearby hospitals.

The Steward hospitals “need to stay afloat,” Reardon said. “If this system crashes, it would be an absolute catastrophe for this state.”

Steward declined to comment for this story. Its landlord, Alabama-based Medical Properties Trust, or MPT, which controls the Norwood property, did not respond to a request for comment.

Gov. Maura Healey has said she wants Steward to transfer its hospitals to new owners and leave Massachusetts. Administration officials declined to comment specifically on Norwood.

In documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston, Steward officials laid out plans for selling their hospitals at auction over the next several weeks. But the plans didn't mention Norwood Hospital, which is currently a construction site, not a functioning medical facility.

The old hospital was demolished after the flooding in 2020, and construction of a $325 million new building eventually began. But the work, led by the construction firm Suffolk, slowed down and came to a stop over the past several months as workers stopped getting paid, according to public officials.

Norwood Hospital’s website still promises a new building, with 130 private patient rooms, will be ready “soon.” But the construction site sits mostly empty. On a recent visit, only a few people were visible working there. The hulking steel skeleton of a building peeked through unfinished outer walls. Town officials said workers are weatherproofing the partially built structure.

“It's just such a gut-wrenching feeling to drive by that site,” said Bob Donnelly, chairman of the Norwood Board of Selectmen. “It’s a promise that has been broken.”

Years ago, Donnelly said, two of his siblings suffered cardiac arrests. Both were taken to Norwood Hospital — and recovered.

“I often wonder whether or not that would have been the case if the hospital was not there,” he said. “Even just a few minutes’ difference could have made a significant difference in their recovery.”

Still, Tony Mazzucco, general manager of the town, said he’s optimistic another health care provider will see the value in Norwood Hospital, take over the site and finish the work Steward started.

“I'm confident there's going to be a hospital there,” he said. “It's just a matter of time.”

Massachusetts needs more hospital beds, Mazzucco noted.

"The state's out of capacity," he said. "Where else are you going to be able to address that capacity issue quicker than a hospital that's already 20% built?”