Steward Health Care System CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre was reportedly paid out at least $250 million over the past four years – while the hospital chain collapsed.
Steward, which operates 30 hospitals across eight states, filed for bankruptcy in May, drawing government scrutiny.
The payouts to its chief exec, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, are based on public disclosures viewed by the newspaper, and were all dished after de la Torre took over majority ownership of the firm from its private-equity owner in 2020.
He went on to use the money on a 500-acre ranch in Waxahachie, Texas – a $7.2million property that comes on top of a 190-foot, $40 million yacht also owned by the former cardiac surgeon, who became CEO of Steward’s predecessor in 2008.
He also owns an 11,108-square-foot mansion in Dallas, valued at $7.2 million. Neighbors include George W. Bush and Mark Cuban in the sought-after location.
‘He basically stole millions out of Steward on the backs of workers and patients and bought himself fancy yachts, mansions and now apparently lavish trips to Versailles,’ said Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said last week, referring to how the hospital owner was recently in France watching Olympic equestrian events at Versailles.
‘I hope he gets his just due and that federal investigators will come after him for his actions,’ she said in a statement, as Steward two Massachusetts hospitals were flagged for closure. Both failed to get bids amid a recent flash sale.
‘Our administration is working night and day to protect jobs, protect patients, and pick up the pieces of the situation that Ralph de la Torre has put us in,’ Healey, a Democrat, went on.
‘I am disgusted by Ralph de la Torre,’ she concluded.
Meanwhile, Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer are both set to close by the end of month – weeks after Steward suddenly announced it would be declaring bankruptcy.
The Dallas-based firm, at the time, said it would be selling off all of its hospitals to address the department, spurring Healey to issue a statement saying she was ‘cautiously optimistic’ about the potential transfer of five other Steward-run hospitals not including the two mentioned.
All are in Massachusetts, where Steward operates seven hospitals.
However, she stressed the power ‘is in the hands of the lenders’ – while also pressing Steward to adhere to state regulations that state hospital owners must give 120 days notice before any facility can close.
In the years before this, Steward was losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year, all while paying de la Torre, 58, handsomely.
The money pit saw conditions at Steward’s other hospitals fall into sad straits, the Journal found, citing one in Florida found last year to be housing 3,000 bats.
Then, this month in Phoenix, air conditioners failed at a Steward hospital forcing patients to be moved elsewhere – in a city where summer temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees.
Some six years before, De La Torre sat courtside at a Phoenix Suns game where he gave an interview to Fox Sport, touting the release of the then-new Steward Center for Sports Medicine and Community Health.
‘Steward believes in heavily pioneering healthcare for the community. What we’re trying to do is bring great innovation, wellness & prevention, and great care to the entire Phoenix community,’ he said at the time, two years before being granted majority ownership of the company in 2020.
Now, the facility is on the chopping block, after St. Luke’s Behavioral Hospital, the hospital with the faulty ACs, was ordered to cease operations this past Tuesday.
A few weeks before, the US Senate launched an investigation into de la Torre’s finances and subpoenaed him to testify – an appearance he will be required to make next month.
Healey, meanwhile, is calling for de la Torre to be federally investigated, given the assets he and his 29-year-old second wife, a self-described real estate representative and equestrian, Nicole Costa, have compiled over the years.
Her horse, Dante SPH, was previously sold at auction in 2014 to a Russian couple for around $3.5 million, The Journal reported.
She trains at a facility down the road from the ranch in Waxahachie, and flaunts photos of her exploits on social media.
The pair married in an elaborate ceremony on the Amalfi Coast in 2022, right in the midst of Steward’s struggles.
Around that time, The Journal found, Steward issued $3 million of charitable contributions last year to the Greenhill School in Addison, Texas, where de la Torre’s twin teenage sons from his first marriage are currently in high school.
Moreover, a federal grand jury in Boston is now investigating the chain but not de la Torre, to discern whether it violated antibribery laws in a deal to run state-owned hospitals in Malta.
A Maltese magistrate has recommended criminal charges against de la Torre, for alleged corruption of public officials, following an investigation that resulted in charges against a former prime minister and other high-profile figures.
According to the Senate committee looking into the firm’s finances, Steward affiliate that is majority-owned by de la Torre also owns $15 million sportfishing boat called Jaruco, as well as wo private jets valued at $95 million.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading that committee, and after authorizing an investigation into the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care and the subpoena its CEO, chided de la Torre in a stern statement.
‘Ralph de la Torre, CEO of Steward Health Care, epitomizes the outrageous corporate greed of our for-profit health care system,’ the Vermont senator said.
‘While Steward was busy shutting down hospitals all over America, de la Torre received $100m, which he used to purchase a $40m yacht. Disgusting.’
A week later, protesters appeared outside the two Massachusetts hospitals Steward’s is also closing, demanding justice.
Signs produced included on demanding officials ‘Sink Ralph’s ship; not ours’, in reference to his mega yacht.
After being contacted by the Journal, de la Torre declined to be interviewed, with a spokesperson saying , ‘Dr. de la Torre made more money as a heart surgeon than in his first years as a corporate CEO.’
The once-renowned surgeon added in his own statement that the value of his two boats were ‘inflated’ by the Senate committee, which is investigating the company, not him specifically.
Paul Levy, who was chief executive at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston when de la Torre worked there as a heart surgeon, in turn told the Journal, ‘[de la Torre could] become one of the most recognized heart surgeons in the world.’
Instead, ‘he was driven to be something different, and the something different was to be rich and famous and a big commercial success.’
De la Torre is a graduate of Harvard Medical School. More than 1,200 employees could lose their jobs if Carney and Nashoba Valley both close.
The exec – who also told the Journal ‘he was regrettably on a family vacation that was planned and paid for last year’ when his hospital closures were announced – remains under subpoena.
The hospitals that he in part owns are all up for sale.