As Steward Ship Was Sinking, CEO Bought $40M Yacht

Welcome to the latest edition of Investigative Roundup, highlighting some of the best investigative reporting on healthcare each week.

As Steward Ship Was Sinking, CEO Bought $40M Yacht

A peculiar private equity deal screwed over an already struggling hospital system while reaping profits for executives, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Back in 2020, Steward Health Care System needed $400 million to dig it "out of a deep financial hole." Instead of investing in the struggling health system, Steward's owner, Cerberus Capital Management, reportedly convinced Steward's landlord, Medical Properties Trust (MPT), to provide the cash infusion.

Cerberus also sold its majority stake in Steward to a group that included the health system's CEO Ralph de la Torre, MD, WSJ reported.

MPT had to put up millions of dollars for its tenant over a series of financial deals, and recent Congressional inquiries uncovered more details about how that went down. The first part of the cash infusion came in $205 million from MPT to invest in overseas hospitals in a joint venture with Steward. The second half was covered when MPT forgave the mortgage for a Steward hospital and paid $200 million for two Utah hospitals.

In the end, Cerberus ended up with a whopping $800 million in profit while Steward filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week, WSJ reported.

Oh, and de la Torre bought a $40 million yacht with the proceeds of a 2021 payout related to his ownership of Steward.

Dangers at a North Carolina Psychiatric Hospital

Over-medicating patients and under-training staff, as well as rampant falsification of patient records, plagued a North Carolina psychiatric hospital, according to an ongoing series of reports from North Carolina Health News.

More than a dozen former employees of Brynn Marr Hospital in Jacksonville, North Carolina described a chaotic and violent environment dangerous for both patients and staff, according to the reports. One former mental health technician said the hospital over-relied on medication, saying it felt the hospital's plan was "let's see how much medication we can get pumped through these kids instead of being proactive and developing a treatment plan."

Other employees said that patients weren't given treatments that would preventively address violence -- and that staff weren't adequately trained to handle violent patients. They described feeling like "punching bags" on the unit for teen boys, the reports stated.

Patients were at risk, too. One 11-year-old who was involuntarily committed was bullied and sexually harassed by other patients, which escalated to physical violence. The patient left the hospital with a concussion that the hospital had not treated, according to North Carolina Health News. Sexual violence and rape was a recurrent issue; police reportedly responded to 129 calls for alleged sexual assault and rape at the hospital from January 2019 to September 2023.

Former staff and patients also described incorrect, exaggerated, and falsified patient records, which was allegedly encouraged by management. Other hospitals owned by the same parent company as Brynn Marr, Universal Health Services, have reported similar issues, according to North Carolina Health News.

Patient's Eyes Ripped Out at Florida Hospital

A worrisome lack of security and safety at Florida state psychiatric hospitals has led to "violence and mayhem," an investigation by the Miami Herald uncovered.

Take for example one patient at South Florida State Hospital in Pembroke Pines, who was admitted to the hospital for schizophrenia and psychosis but became suicidal after a tragic and brutal attack from another patient left him blind, the Herald reported.

This patient's former roommate attacked him and ripped his eyes out of their socket. A lapse in management led to the two being left unsupervised for an hour. Camera footage showed that the attack went on for 7 minutes before any staff were notified. Once staff arrived, they waited an hour before contacting law enforcement.

This attack -- and the victim becoming suicidal -- was detailed in a report by the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) that declared patients at the hospital in "immediate jeopardy" meaning that the hospital's mistakes "placed the health and safety of [patients] in its care at risk for serious injury, serious harm, serious impairment or death." This designation was eventually lifted after the hospital's correction plan was accepted.

Still, the AHCA report and the Miami Herald article shine a light on a pattern of incidents in which the hospital delayed calling law enforcement and cleaned up crime scenes before they arrived.

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