Steward Health Care

Steward Health Care

Steward Health Care was founded in 2010 when a group of physicians led by Dr. Ralph de la Torre acquired six Caritas Christi hospitals from the Archdiocese of Boston. The firm grew rapidly through leveraged acquisitions, peaking at 39 hospitals before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2024 with debts exceeding $9 billion (per The Wall Street Journal, 2024). De la Torre, a cardiac surgeon by training, structured the company as a for-profit entity owned by the Medical Properties Trust real estate investment trust. The firm primarily generates revenue through hospital operations, physician networks, and outpatient services across Massachusetts, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Malta. Steward owns or leases hospital real estate, operates urgent-care centers, and runs health insurance plans through Steward Health Choice. The bankruptcy filing listed Medical Properties Trust as its largest landlord and cited declining patient volumes, underpayments by insurers and skyrocketing labor costs (per The New York Times, 2024). Steward employs roughly 30,000 people and treated over 450,000 inpatients in its last full fiscal year. The firm maintains a research partnership with the University of Texas at Dallas through Steward's data analytics arm. In May 2024, Steward secured a $75 million debtor-in-possession loan from Medical Properties Trust to continue operations during bankruptcy proceedings (per Reuters, 2024). The company plans to sell or restructure most of its hospitals by mid-2025. Steward's structural differentiator was its physician-led ownership model, which was unusual for a national hospital chain, and its reliance on a single landlord, Medical Properties Trust, for most facilities. This concentration created an alignment-of-interest risk that contributed to the bankruptcy. The case is being heard in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.