Hawthorn Medical Employee: “We Didn’t Get Paid Today”

UPDATE:  Saint Anne's Hospital and Hawthorn Medical Associates employees have been paid since this article was originally shared. 

We got a call from a woman this morning that told us she was an employee at Hawthorn Medical in Dartmouth.  The woman told us that they normally get paid every two weeks, and that she was expecting to wake up and see a direct deposit of her paycheck into her checking account.  However, when she logged on to pay her bills, she said the money had not appeared.

Hawthorn Medical Associates identifies itself as an affiliate of the Steward Healthcare Network on their website.  Steward Healthcare filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this week, however employees were told that they should not expect any issues getting paid by the healthcare company.

According to several callers to Michael and Maddie, however, the expected direct deposits did not happen Thursday morning.  The lack of pay caused an expected reaction among employees.  "The bosses are saying we might get paid by the end of the day, but I know they just filed bankruptcy this week.  This is unacceptable.  We usually get paid on Thursday mornings before you wake up," said the caller who asked to remain anonymous.

LISTEN:  Hawthorn Medical employee calls Michael and Maddie because her paycheck never showed up in her account this morning as expected.

The caller said that she had a planned day off today, but she had spoken to a number of her fellow employees who also did not get paid as expected this morning.  "A lot of people are going to walk out tomorrow if we don't get paid," she said.

Phone calls to the PR Department at Hawthorn Medical Associates in Dartmouth went unanswered, however an employee later told us about a memo that went out from Steward Health Care's President Mark Rich.  The executive said that the payroll delay was a "processing error within the Bank of America system."

"We followed all of Bank of America's procedures following the Chapter 11 filing and were assured by them that this would not happen," Rich said in the memo, assuring his staff that they should see payment within the next 24 hours.

The American Nurses Association is celebrating National Nurses Week 2024 May 6 - May 12. Hawthorn Medical had posted a message of thanks to their nurses on their Facebook page.