Ayer

The U.S. military base known as Fort Devens closed in 1996, jettisoning more than 7,000 local military and civilian jobs.

The Gov. Maura Healey Administration has 32 officials to a working group assembled to address the healthcare needs of a region now left without a hospital. 

CELLTREAT Scientific Products, a lab equipment supply company formerly based in Pepperell, has moved its presence to Ayer.

The U.S. Senate agreed Wednesday to ask federal prosecutors to consider criminal contempt charges against Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre.

MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham is in one of the most tenuous financial standings of all Central Massachusetts hospitals, according to a new report from the Center for Health Information & Analysis analyzing the financial stability of hospitals in the state. 

Catania Oils has been fined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a result of a peanut oil spill that allegedly violated the Clean Water Act.

For this rural Massachusetts area, the hospital’s closure will mean extended ER wait times at neighboring hospitals already pushing capacity, quadrupled ambulance turnaround times, and ultimately, the potential collapse of a healthcare system already spread thin.

The state is arranging to have ambulances on standby outside both Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer and Carney Hospital in Dorchester for a week after the hospitals close Saturday morning and is in talks to repurpose the Ayer hospital in some way, the governor's office said Friday.

The independent watchdog keeping an eye on care at Steward Health Care hospitals urged the state, the company, and its lenders and creditors to take action to lessen the devastation that the looming closure of Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer is having, and will continue have on people who live in the Central Massachusetts region.

UMass Memorial CEO Dr. Eric Dickson said he hopes to work with the state to provide some healthcare facility for the Nashoba Valley region, although no formal discussions have taken place.