A Massachusetts task force assembled by Gov. Maura Healey released a June 22 report that revealed the healthcare consequences of the unfinished Norwood (Mass.) Hospital’s closure, urging the legislature to let the state take the unfinished facility through eminent domain and return it to a qualified operator.
“The task force’s recommendations have a single objective: returning a 24-hour emergency department, inpatient capacity and cardiac care to the 800 Washington St. site under a qualified operator,” the report said.
Norwood Hospital shuttered in June 2020 after flooding forced an evacuation. Bankrupt Dallas-based Steward Health Care, which operated the facility, halted reconstruction efforts on the hospital in February 2024 amid contractor complaints of unpaid bills. Steward then abandoned the hospital and four satellite facilities in October 2024.
The site is owned by an affiliate of Steward’s former landlord, Medical Properties Trust. In mid-June, talks over Norwood Hospital ended between Somerville, Mass.-based Mass General Brigham and MPT after the real estate owner came back with a second asking price that was 50% higher than its first.
The task force’s report pulls from state EMS and hospital discharge data. It found that the share of ambulance transports reaching a hospital within 30 minutes across the 10-town catchment area dropped from 52% prior to the closure to 29% afterward. In Norwood, the figure dropped from 87% to 38%.
The closure also eliminated the hospital’s cardiac catheterization laboratory that was capable of performing percutaneous coronary intervention, a major heart attack treatment that only roughly two dozen hospitals statewide could perform.
Area hospitals already close to capacity saw inpatient demand shifted to them. Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital—Needham (Mass.) took on the largest share, rising from 64.6% inpatient occupancy to 92.9%. Good Samaritan in Brockton, Mass. went from 81.4% inpatient occupancy to 95.5%, the report found.
To combat these challenges, the task force recommends the enactment of H.5192, which would authorize the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance to acquire Norwood Hospital through eminent domain. Should the state decline to act, the town of Norwood is prepared to pursue acquisition of the hospital through its own authority.
“Nearly six years after a flood first forced its doors closed, the communities that depended on Norwood Hospital remain without local acute care — through no decision of their own,” the report said. “The communities that depended on Norwood Hospital did not choose to lose it, and they cannot restore it on their own. The Commonwealth has the authority to act.”
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