Steward Health Care CEO Ranked #1 On Worst Examples Of Profiteering And Most Dysfunctional Healthcare List
An American think tank has Steward Health Care CEO Ralph De La Torre as the #1 in its annual top ten list of the worst examples of profiteering and dysfunction in healthcare.
The Lown Institute, a non-profit think thank organisation, hosts the annual “Shrekli Awards”, named after Martin Shkreli, the American businessman notorious for raising the price of lifesaving medicine.
The awards have since ranked the most scandalous healthcare systems that have had controversies surrounding them relating to profiteering, fraud and other “egregious examples of dysfunction.”
At the very top of the 2024 list was Ralph De La Torre the former-CEO of Steward Health Care, one of the largest networks of private hospitals in the US, which was also at the centre of a major hospital scandal in Malta.
“Dr. Ralph de la Torre, as CEO of Steward Health Care, allegedly orchestrated a dramatic healthcare debacle by prioritising private equity profits over patient care,” Lown wrote “Fueled by debt and sale-leaseback schemes, Steward’s expansion and subsequent fall into bankruptcy left hospitals gutted, employees laid off, and communities underserved, the Boston Globe reported.”
Steward gained nationwide notoriety following a widespread scandal after it acquired a public-private partnership of three Maltese hospitals in 2018.
A court case triggered by PN MP Adrian Delia shined a light on a series of mismanagement, fraudulent activity and a lack of promised investment, and the government has since taken over the three hospitals.
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