Timeline: Steward Health Care kept expanding, even as the situation at hospitals turned dire

Gilberto Melendez-Brancaccio, 31, died alone at Carney Hospital in Dorchester of respiratory arrest, even though he was supposed to be monitored one-to-one, federal investigators later found. They also found that the emergency department that night was understaffed and that staff members were not properly trained.

Five patients at Glenwood Regional Medical Center in West Monroe, La., were infected during an outbreak of Aspergillus mold in the COVID intensive care unit, according to federal investigators. Four of those patients later died, and a federal report criticized the hospital for not acting fast enough to halt the outbreak. Steward acknowledged the hospital did not have enough infection prevention staff and cleaners lacked the right equipment to “properly clean in a healthcare environment.

Michael Edward Shea, 66, was found dead on a hallway stretcher in the Good Samaritan Medical Center emergency department in Brockton after suffering a cardiac arrest, according to a complaint filed by the nurses union with state regulators. The ED had only 11 nurses when there should have been 16.

A patient on a cardiac monitor died at Glenwood Regional Medical Center after a nurse failed to check on her. The monitor tech, watching patients' vital signs from another floor, notified the nurse that one of the patient's leads was off but did not notify her that the patient's heart had stopped pumping. A relative found the patient dead 20 minutes later. Federal investigators gave the hospital an immediate jeopardy citation, the most serious citation indicating major patient safety issues.

A patient died at Good Samaritan Medical Center after waiting in the registration line of the emergency department with acute chest pain and shortness of breath. An internal union email said nineteen nurses were supposed to be on duty that night — there were eight.

Nabil Haque

Sungida Rashid, 39, bled to death shortly after giving birth at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton. The embolism coil that St. Elizabeth's doctors could have used to stop the bleeding wasn’t available. Weeks before, according to hospital staff, the devices had been repossessed. Federal investigators gave the hospital an immediate jeopardy citation, the most serious citation indicating major patient safety issues.

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A woman went to Melbourne Regional Medical Center in Florida with a perforated bowel that needed immediate surgery, but the hospital had no general surgeon on call to operate on her. Two other Steward hospitals in the area — each roughly half an hour away — also declined to take her, burning several precious hours. The patient was finally approved for a transfer to a hospital more than an hour away but died en route.

Richard Fingleton, 81, died at Holy Family Hospital in Methuen after not being checked for vital signs for approximately seven hours in the emergency department. A doctor ordered continuous cardiac monitoring and vital sign checks every four hours, but he had no record of being checked until he was discovered unresponsive at 12:40 a.m. Federal investigators gave the hospital an immediate jeopardy citation, the most serious citation indicating major patient safety issues.

Sherlynn H. Brownlee, 80, died at Glenwood Regional Medical Center after waiting several days to be transferred to a hospital that had a higher level ICU. Despite having respiratory failure, she missed out on an open bed at two different hospitals because there was no ICU doctor at Glenwood available to discharge her. Federal investigators gave the hospital an immediate jeopardy citation, the most serious citation indicating major patient safety issues.