Report calls for reopening Norwood Hospital through eminent domain bill, 6 years after catastrophic flood

Six years after devastating floods in Massachusetts forced Norwood Hospital to shut down, a new report is detailing the impacts of its continued closure and laying out a possible reopening path. 

The report released this week by the Norwood Hospital Task Force said the hospital was profitable before it closed, handling 39,000 emergency department visits in its last full year of operation. But on June 28, 2020, a storm dropped six inches of rain on the area in just a few hours. Video showed floodwaters rushing inside the lower of level of the hospital, forcing patients and staff to evacuate. 

Plans to rebuild the hospital were abandoned in 2024 amid troubled owner Steward Health Care's bankruptcy. It remains an "unfinished construction project" owned by an Alabama-based real estate investment trust, the report says.

"What happened to Norwood Hospital should concern every resident of Massachusetts," Task Force Chair and Norwood General Manager Tony Mazzucco said in a statement. "This hospital did not fail. It was profitable. It served generations of families. It was lost to a natural disaster and then became trapped in a system that increasingly treats health care infrastructure as a financial asset rather than a public necessity."

Norwood Hospital closure impacts

The report said reaching emergency care now takes "significantly longer" for the 250,000 residents that were served by Norwood Hospital.

Before the hospital closed, ambulances were able to get patients to a hospital within 30 minutes of being dispatched about 52% of the time. Now that they have to travel further to hospitals in Boston, Needham, Newton or Brockton, that number is down to 29%. 

Norwood's Hospital closure also meant the loss of a cardiac lab that saw 427 patients in its last year. It was one of just two dozen hospitals in Massachusetts that were specially equipped to treat major heart attacks. 

"If you have a heart attack in Norwood, Walpole, Wrentham, Sharon, Canton, Dedham, Foxborough, or Mansfield, you are 40 minutes from getting the appropriate care," Mazzucco said. "The best hospitals in the world do not matter if patients can't reach them." 

Using eminent domain

The Boston Globe reported last week that Mass General Brigham tried to buy the construction site and finish rebuilding the hospital, but owner Medical Properties Trust allegedly raised the price and negotiations have stalled.

Now the report is recommending that the Legislature pass a bill that would authorize the state to acquire the property through eminent domain, which is the power of the government to take private property for public use. It would then transfer the property to a nonprofit to finish construction and reopen the hospital. Massachusetts used eminent domain to seize St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton from Steward in 2024. 

The House bill was reported favorably by the Ways and Means committee in March. If it doesn't pass, the report recommended that the town of Norwood take its own eminent domain action to acquire the facility, though it said the state taking the lead is the preferred path. 

"The communities that depended on Norwood Hospital did not choose to lose it, and they cannot restore it on their own," the report said. "The Commonwealth has the authority to act. The Task Force urges that it do so."