Local News

One year after devastating fire, Brockton Hospital is still working to reopen

Nearby emergency rooms remain overcrowded a year after a serious fire at Brockton Hospital forced it to temporarily close.

Brockton Hospital in August 2023. Photo by: Barry Chin/Globe Staff

February 6, 2024

The most serious fire in Brockton’s history took 31 fire engines, 77 ambulances, six wheelchair vans, and seven ladders from across the region to get under control. While no one was injured, Signature Health called the 10-alarm Brockton Hospital fire a “building catastrophe.”

On Feb. 7, 2023, smoke billowed into the morning sky as an electrical fire ravaged the building. Crews worked to successfully evacuate more than 160 patients as they spent hours extinguishing the flames.

Since then, Brockton Hospital has set multiple reopening dates. In their initial announcement two days after the fire, Signature Healthcare, the hospital’s parent company, pointed to May 2023 as a tentative opening date for limited inpatient services. The Boston Globe reported in August that supply chain issues would further delay the opening of inpatient services for the hospital until 2024.

Now, at the one year anniversary of the devastating fire, Signature Healthcare spokesperson Lorraine McGrath said they are working toward a phased opening in the late spring, starting with more select outpatient services like labs and radiological services.

She called the project a “huge undertaking” for the not-for-profit company, which started offering a few outpatient services at Brockton Hospital in August including wound services and infusion therapy.

McGrath said that Signature Healthcare is currently operating two urgent cares in Brockton, including one at the site of the still-closed hospital, is leasing a closed hospital in East Bridgewater, and have sent surgeons and registered nurses to area hospitals. While “many” staff are still employed with Signature Healthcare, the Globe reported that about 300 staff members were laid off.

A string of closures leads to ‘influx’ for remaining hospitals

But for emergency services and in-patient stays, the City of Brockton is directing their residents to South Shore Hospital in Weymouth and Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton. Without Brockton Hospital, the two are the only acute care hospitals with emergency services in the region.

Nearby Norwood Hospital closed in 2020 due to flash flooding, and while a new hospital is being built, it won’t be open until 2025, according to GBH News. Quincy Hospital shuttered in 2020, and Compass Medical, a chain serving Quincy, Braintree, Easton, East Bridgewater, Middleborough, and Taunton, suddenly closed in 2023.

Both closures have left the South Shore with a hole to fill, with South Shore and Good Samaritan saying they’ve seen a double digit influx of patients.

Jason Tracy, the chief medical officer at South Shore, said the closures of the past few years have all affected the hospital.

In the past two months, Tracy said, South Shore has treated up to 360 patients per day in the emergency department. Five years ago, he said their census would be “well under” 270.

“For us to be 125 admissions beyond our licensed capacity, that’s an astronomically high number,” Tracy said. “When you think about our overall volume, we’re, right now for our hospital of our size, easily the third busiest emergency department in the state.”

Brockton Hospital had 216 hospital beds as of 2018.

Tracy said their hospital has been doubling up in single rooms, converting units to surge spaces, holding patients in the post-anesthesia care unit, and even treating people in hallways.

“We need capacity in the state, and in particular in our region,” Tracy said. “We need that ASAP.”

Steward Healthcare, the operator of Good Samaritan and eight other Massachusetts hospitals, is facing financial troubles of its own. In a statement, they said Good Samaritan saw a 25% increase in emergency department visits in 2023.

“As a community hospital dedicated to serving the Brockton area, the doctors and staff of Good Samaritan Medical Center were more than willing to step up when the fire at Brockton Hospital resulted in an influx of patients. We worked around the clock to help the community and treated every patient who came to our doors,” a spokesperson said. “To accommodate the extra patient volume, we converted one of our units to a medical/surgical unit.”

Tracy said he’s concerned about Steward, which he worries could lead to another closed hospital for the region.

“Our community and our staff have been extraordinarily understanding of this challenge,” Tracy said, “but they also would like a conclusion to the capacity challenges so that we can go back to delivering care in a more efficient manner that doesn’t include surge spaces and hallways and is more patient focused.”

McGrath said Brockton Hospital is working with its insurance agency as they continue toward offering more services in the coming months.