An investment of this size, it said, is better served by the new facility it is building furthe r south near the Texas A&M San Antonio campus. University Health said the lifespan of the South Side hospital without significant investment was limited. Steward Health Care owns 39 community hospitals in nine states and the nation of Malta, according to its website.īexar County has made no such allegations, but officials questioned the bailout of the for-profit institution. The no comment came a day after TPR sent its questions and was assured they would respond. “We have decided not to respond to your inquiry,” said Josephine Martin, a Steward Health Care spokesperson. In its “Den of Thieves” paper, released Friday, Viceroy said Steward Health Care System laundered money to international politicians and fraudsters. Viceroy said the company faked building projects, including one hospital expansion in Texas, to disappear funds. " has disappeared hundreds of millions of dollars in what appear to be fraudulent transactions," the report said. In a January report, the group said it was shorting MPT and Steward because the companies had created billions of dollars in uncommercial or paper transactions to overstate the company's value and potentially steal money.
It has taken a special interest in Steward and MPT, issuing more than one dozen reports on the companies in a few weeks. Viceroy Research is a financial investigative research group owned by a short-seller with a history of releasing damning reports and at times incurring fines as a result. The companies were recently called a "den of thieves" by one group of financial investigators, who said the healthcare provider's associated businesses were, among other things, under international criminal investigation. One explanation was that Steward Health and Medical Properties Trust was being investigated by multiple law firms on behalf of investors for securities laws violations. While University Health didn't elaborate on the meaning of that statement, the financial world was abuzz with possible explanations. "It has become increasingly clear that our mission and values are not aligned with Medical Properties Trust," the University Health statement read. They questioned why they should bail out billion dollar for-profit companies. But they did not think discussions with Steward and MPT produced a good deal for taxpayers.
Officials with University Health, the county's hospital system, said in a March 1 release that they couldn't talk about negotiations of a takeover. It lasted less than an hour, during which Steward Health officials said they didn’t plan to close but needed between $5 million and $10 million to stay open.
A spokesperson said they only had one Zoom meeting with Steward Health. The announcement surprised Bexar County officials. The alternative is to leave the South Side in what one health care official called a "public-health crisis." The loss of Texas Vista, the 40-year old hospital formerly known as Southwest General, would leave just one major facility on the city's impoverished and historically under-resourced South Side.Įmployees of Steward Health Care, along with its parent company Medical Properties Trust, have made pleas to the public, saying the only way to save them is through a Bexar County bailout that would cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. San Antonio's healthcare-starved South Side is on the cusp of losing a hospital. Get TPR's best stories of the day and a jump start to the weekend with the 321 Newsletter - straight to your inbox every day.
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