Embattled Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre to resign

The CEO of a hospital operator that filed for bankruptcy protection in May will step down after failing to testify before a U.S. Senate panel.

Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre has overseen a network of some 30 hospitals around the country. The Texas-based company’s troubled recent history has drawn scrutiny from elected officials in New England, where some of its hospitals are located.

A spokesperson for de la Torre told CBS News in a statement Saturday that he “has amicably separated from Steward on mutually agreeable terms” and “will continue to be a tireless advocate for the improvement of reimbursement rates for the underprivileged patient population.”

The spokesperson added that de la Torre “believes Steward’s financial challenges put a much-needed spotlight on Massachusetts’s ongoing failure to fix its healthcare structure and the inequities in its state system.”

A CBS News investigation that spanned nearly two years documented how private equity investors and de la Torre extracted hundreds of millions of dollars while healthcare workers and patients struggled to get the life-saving supplies they needed.

In August, the company closed two Massachusetts hospitals, leaving about 1,200 workers jobless, according to the state.  

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said earlier this month that Congress “will hold Dr. de la Torre accountable for his greed and for the damage he has caused to hospitals and patients throughout America.”

Following news of the resignation, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts tweeted that “Massachusetts communities are finally free from Ralph’s destructive reign, but he’s not off the hook yet — the authorities still must prosecute his contempt charge and investigate him for other possible crimes he may have committed as Steward’s CEO.”

Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions subcommittee on Primary Health and Retirement Security,  also said in a statement Saturday that de la Torre’s resignation is not enough, and must be held accountable in the court of law.”

“He has extracted hundreds of millions from emergency departments, operating rooms, and intensive care units to buy luxury property, expensive vacations, and yachts, all while patients suffered and died and workers and hospitals went unresourced,” Markey wrote. 

De la Torre’s resignation is effective Oct. 1. The Senate approved a resolution on Wednesday that was intended to hold him in criminal contempt for failing to testify before a committee.

The Senate panel has been looking into Steward’s bankruptcy. De la Torre did not appear before it despite being issued a subpoena. The resolution refers the matter to a federal prosecutor.

Earlier this month, CBS News learned that a whistleblower had come forward to Congress alleging that de la Torre and other Steward executives had illegally conspired with foreign officials to secure a hospital contract abroad.

In his complaint to Congress, the whistleblower — identified as Ram Tumuluri, a health care executive who worked with the Maltese government — described a 2017 meeting in which de la Torre was “insinuating he would bribe officials of the Government of Malta.”