The CEO of the nation's largest private for-profit hospital chain is under fire for ignoring a subpoena to testify before the Senate today.

The hearing looked at the financial collapse of Stewart Healthcare,

that's a hospital group created by a private equity firm,

generated huge fortunes for its investors and its CEO,

but left patients in dangerous, sometimes deadly conditions.

William Bringham has the story.

Jeff, Stewart's health care CEO,

Dr Ralph de la Torres,

skipped today's hearing

where he would have been questioned about his

role in the bankruptcy of this nationwide hospital chain. According to an

investigation by the Boston Globe, Stuart Health's 30-plus hospitals were some of the worst in the

nation. Six of its remaining hospitals in Massachusetts are for sale and two

others have closed. Several witnesses who worked for Stewart provided damning testimony today

about the role that corporate profits played in Stewart's downfall. That included a nurse

who described one example of how the chain's habit of not paying vendors

created horrible circumstances for grieving parents.

Sadly enough, sometimes babies die, newborn babies die, and the practice is to place the babies's remains in a bereavement box and take it to the morgue.

Stuart didn't pay the vendor and they weren't any bereavement boxes and nurses

were forced to put babies remains in cardboard shipping boxes.

For more on the downfall of this hospital chain, I'm joined by Mark Arsenal.

He's part of the Boston Globe Spotlight Investigative team that did this series.

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