‘Don’t want to be forgotten’: Ayer town officials to fight closing of Nashoba Valley Medical Center

AYER, Mass. — Ayer town officials are promising to fight efforts to close Nashoba Valley Medical Center (NVMC), a regional hospital owned by Steward Health Care.

On Friday, the owner of Steward Health Care announced Nashoba Valley would close after attempts to find a buyer failed.

In a statement, Town Manager Robert Pontbriand said, “The Town of Ayer remains committed to and is actively working with our State and Federal leaders to ensure that NVMC remains open. NVMC provides critical health care not only for the Town of Ayer but the seventeen towns of the Nashoba Valley Region.  It is also Ayer’s second-largest employer and one of the top employers in the region. NVMC is more than just a hospital, it is an important employer, and community partner for the thousands of residents of the Nashoba Valley Region.”

News of NVMC’s closure spread quickly.

“I hate it, I hate it. That’s my hospital,” Pare, an Ayer resident, said.

“I just think it’s very sad for the community and I think there’s a lot of scared people not knowing what is going to happen in the future,” added Jennifer Beauregard of Shirley.

Nashoba Valley is one of two Massachusetts hospitals that cash-strapped Steward Health Care could not find a buyer for.

Right now, Nashoba and Dorchester’s Carney Hospital are scheduled to close at the end of August, despite a Massachusetts law requiring a 120-day notice.

Lori Grant is a Therapeutic Coordinator at Nashoba Valley

She says morale has plummeted since news of the hospital closing was revealed.

She is very concerned about what the quality of care will look like once Nashoba is closed

“There’s so many communities that use this hospital, and there’s not another hospital,” Grant said.  “You have a chest pain at two o’clock in the morning, you’re not ten minutes away anymore. So, it’s really scary.”

Timothy Johnston is Ayer’s Fire Chief.

He says losing Nashoba Valley will increase emergency response times throughout the area, saying what now takes 10 minutes to get a patient to a hospital, could soon take as much as 45.

“This puts the squeeze not only on Ayer, but every town around that brought patients into Nashoba Valley,” Chief Johnston said. “We just don’t want to be forgotten. We are outside Route 495, but this area is just as important as any other area in the state. We’d like to see them pursue any avenues as much as possible to try to keep that facility open.”

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