Internal emails show MPT’s top executives referring to the Wall Street Journal reporter who was writing about them as a “deranged, pretend journalist” whose sources, they claimed, were “absolutely fake.”

“I’m tired of this guy, wrote MPT’s CEO. “It’s time we go on the offensive.”

One analyst, a finance guy in Connecticut, got barraged with harassing tweets asking if he had security, saying that “his life [was] in danger,” and warning he could end up like a murdered journalist. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

One of those intelligence firms mounted an effort focused on protecting MPT. It included a fake blog, a planted Reddit user, that bank hack, and orders to dig into MPT critics' “vulnerabilities and pressure points,” including “career, integrity, personal life and identify any potential misconduct.”

What we found when we went through these leaked docs, though, is a much broader effort. MPT amassed an army of crisis management professionals to protect its reputation, eventually working alongside 3 crisis PR firms, 5 law firms, and 2 private intelligence firms. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

MPT owns and rents out nearly 400 facilities globally. A few years ago, journalists and financial analysts began pointing out that MPT might be hiding the fact that its hospitals were struggling under high rents. Things got intense; a critic’s bank account was hacked: revealnews.org/podcast/medi...

I had to Google the Hangi, and yes!

And it is one more data point showing how the private equity business model isn't compatible with providing the best patient care. I wrote about another example for our latest issue, that of the PE-fueled Steward Health Care: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Her baby Lilly died. Lisa's lawyer filed a motion to compel Steward to turn over records so she could figure out if understaffing led to this delay. Her filing was *5 days* before Steward declared bankruptcy. That paused the case. Which means she can't get company records anymore. /10

In the case of Lisa Malick, she was pregnant with a healthy baby girl in 2021; it was her ninth pregnancy, after years of fertility struggles and IVF. She had a placental abruption at a Steward hospital. It took nearly 3 hours for someone to perform a C-section while the baby's heart rate fell. /9

Nabil and I talked on Zoom for months, almost weekly. It was a front row seat to the evolution of grief, and the recognition that something so life-altering can flow out of decisions made in a boardroom by people far removed from patient care. /8

In the case of Sungida’s husband, Nabil, 1.5 years later every day feels like a small betrayal. Of the dreams he and Sungida had for themselves and for their daughter in America. This was so apparent when I visited him in Dhaka for the film. /7

Picking this back up to talk a little more about the two cases featured in this story and film. Both of these families emphasized the wreckage that continues to rip through their lives from the business decisions made at Steward hospitals. /6 www.motherjones.com/politics/202...