Editor’s note: An analysis of stories WHAV has reported over the last 10 years suggest what was once the separately licensed Haverhill hospital was set up to be abandoned in just such a situation as the one now unfolding. Evidence suggests the Haverhill and Methuen Holy Family Hospitals were combined under a single license a decade ago specifically to more easily allow the jettisoning of the former Hale Hospital, later Merrimack Valley Hospital. Over the last few weeks, state officials have declined to address questions posed by WHAV about risks of the now-shared license.
A local movement to save Holy Family Hospital’s Haverhill campus is brewing.
As Steward Health Care faces bankruptcy proceedings, advocates warned at a recent City Council meeting the state may give up on the city’s only hospital, as WHAV previously reported. Around 50 community members planned immediate action during a meeting at the Haverhill Public Library last night, including writing letters, talking to neighbors, getting more signatures on a petition to deliver to the governor and attending the state democratic convention in Worcester Saturday morning.
“And we have to be quick. We’re almost out of time,” Nurse Tammy Danis MacLeod said. “When we talked about stuff like this a year ago, the state legislators looked at us like, ‘oh, you’re the girl who cried wolf.’ Well, the wolf’s at the door.”
An emergency room nurse said the hospital is already underequipped and understaffed. Despite having only two or three nurses, she said her department is functioning as a full trauma center. She explained, “Everybody’s jumping ship because we’re not moving fast enough to give them any answers. They’re all afraid.”
The Lawrence-based nonprofit Merrimack Valley Project put last night’s meeting together. Lead Organizer Michael “Lefty” Morrill urged the crowd—made up mostly of people directly affected by the potential closure—to identify goals and strategies for a campaign. Union leaders and staff for some state legislators were also present.
Morrill stressed the need to target one powerful person with their collective action. The individual will hopefully feel the heat, he explained, and pull a lever to bring about meaningful change. Gov. Maura T. Healey, and perhaps state Attorney General Andrea Campbell, were selected.
“If you have that one target, that will give them the ability to be the hero or the villain,” he said. “They understand that. They get it. We need to use that to our advantage because we don’t have a million dollars to run a TV ad campaign.”
Haverhill city councilors and Mayor Melinda E. Barrett have already pledged their full support. The mayor wrote in a May 29 letter to the governor, “Patients shouldn’t defer care or travel further than they need for accessible, affordable and high-quality health care. That’s what will happen if Holy Family Haverhill closes, and it could be the difference between life and death for many people, especially those with long-term illness and in emergency.”
Julio Mejia, of the Merrimack Valley Project, recently brought nurses, doctors, union leaders and concerned citizens before City Council. The nonprofit will hold another meeting June 11 at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Haverhill.