Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
AYER, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — The effort to keep Nashoba Valley Medical Center open this past summer proved fruitless – the protests, letters, and fiery condemnation turned out to be screaming into the ear of an immovable medical giant, Steward Healthcare. Dire financial straits forced the hospital empire to sell off five other properties in Massachusetts, but Nashoba Valley was one of two Steward hospitals that couldn’t escape closure. The hospital officially shut its doors on August 31.
Now, the town of Ayer and its neighbors are plunging headfirst into the dark unknown, without one of the area’s key economic and healthcare anchors.
Read More: Healey: Mass. Has Seized Steward Hospital In Brighton
The Immediate Aftermath
Ayer Town Manager Robert Pontbriand sat down with WBZ NewsRadio to talk about the effects of the hospital closure, and what the town and region need to do to make it through. The most pressing matter at hand was the increased time it now takes for town ambulances to get to a working emergency room. He said a round-trip used to take 20 minutes. Now, it takes more than an hour.
“In an emergency situation, minutes — if not seconds — make a big difference,” he said.
Pontbriand said there are also longer wait times when the ambulances arrive at Leominster, the site of the closest ER. The Nashoba Valley site also had a working medivac helicopter pad, which has since been shut down. In the days after the closure, that forced a med-flight to land at the local high school, which he said is less safe than a working helipad.
Senior citizens and people with disabilities, he said, were now having trouble reaching their appointments which have been moved farther than they can travel. And for a town without a robust public transit system, reaching those appointments was tough at the best of times.
Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
The Economic Ripple Effects
“The Nashoba Valley Medical Center was the second largest employer for the town of Ayer. At any one point, it employed some 500 to 600 people. Those jobs are gone right now,” Pontbriand said.
That’s not even counting the business the physical operation of the hospital gave to the surrounding area.
“Plumbers, electricians that did work up there, you’ve lost that job source as well for them,” he said.
The cumulative impact of the closure will likely stretch past the day-to-day of the hospital, and onto Main Street. For now though, Pontbriand said it was too soon to know the exact impact. The concern is that the town and the entire Nashoba Valley will lose the consumer traffic from the hospital now that it has closed.
“I know we’re going to see, sadly, those ripples get bigger as we go forward,” he said.
At Pinard’s, a flower shop five minutes from the former hospital site, Manager Lisa told WBZ NewsRadio that the business is losing out. A yellow “Save Nashoba, Save Lives, Save Nashoba Medical Center” yard sign sat outside.
“I had quite a few doctors that placed orders with us. Quite a few doctors,” she said.
She said it felt like the hospital up and left.
“I feel that, being in a small town, we were forgotten,” she said. “I just feel that we were left. They had already decided they were closing, and that was all. No matter how much fighting we did, I don’t really think it helped.” Lisa said she hoped the hospital building would find use again, so that it didn’t simply decay.
The Future That Hangs In The Balance
Pontbriand said the closure of the hospital has thrown Ayer and the other Nashoba Valley towns into a state of deep uncertainty. For one, the town budget hadn’t accounted for the closure of a massive economic driver when it was written and passed – or accounted for the possible aftereffects, like the cost of driving ambulance patients much farther. But the town manager said if the region hopes to come out of the crisis unscathed, state and federal help will be critical.
“If the towns are left on their own, it is going to be not only a healthcare disaster, but an economic disaster in the making,” he said.
The only viable option, he insisted, is getting another hospital operator to succeed where Steward had failed and get Nashoba Valley Medical Center back up and running.
“I mean, in an ideal world, it would reopen tomorrow,” he said.
“It is up to us to solve the problem. We remain committed – and I mean this – this region, this town, we remain committed to getting that hospital back open with a responsible operator,” Pontbriand said.
Steward Healthcare did not respond to a request for comment.
WBZ Chaiel Schaffel (@CschaffelWBZ) reports:
Note: This story aired on September 12, 2024.
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