AYER — Caregivers and firefighters who serve at Nashoba Valley Medical Center called on state officials Monday to commit to the preservation of their hospital, and all other hospitals in Massachusetts being affected by the Steward Health Care bankruptcy crisis.

Ayer Fire Department Local 2544 President David Greenwood said his department depends on Nashoba Valley Medical Center to perform many of its duties.

“Although the future of Nashoba is uncertain at this point, one thing is certain to this area, and it is the fact that public safety organizations around here depend on this hospital,” said Greenwood. “It is a critical piece of infrastructure for public health out this way. If the hospital were to close, it would have detrimental impacts to public safety in this area.”

The area covered by NVMC is a generally rural area, Greenwood pointed out, and unlike places like Boston, options for emergency medical treatment are limited.

“It causes us to have negative impacts on our response times, turnaround times, it takes us out of service for longer. We don’t have the staffing to do this,” said Greenwood.

Audra Sprague has been an emergency room nurse at NVMC for nearly 17 years. She said during the press conference that the nurses and those who would be affected by the hospital’s closure are calling on Gov. Maura Healey and the rest of the state government “to honor the promises she made to the residents of Massachusetts on May 6.”

“The closure of Nashoba Valley Medical Center, and any of Steward’s eight other hospitals, would create a void that cannot be filled in this state,” said Sprague.

In addition to NVMC, Steward owns St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Morton Hospital in Taunton, St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River and Holy Family Hospital in both Haverhill and Methuen. After months of questions over the company’s financial future, Steward Health Care filed for bankruptcy in a Texas court last month, and it now intends to sell off all 32 of its hospitals nationwide this summer. What happens to the operations at those hospitals when those sales take place has not been made clear to those working in them.

Signs of trouble with Steward began to surface in January when it became public that the company was behind on its debts and was facing several lawsuits from the owners of the land the hospitals sit on.

Sprague said the closure of NVMC would cause patients in the area needing emergency care to have to travel further, and for longer, to a medical facility that can provide care. In medical emergencies, that extra time matters.

“For a patient experiencing a stroke or a heart attack, every lost minute can mean a permanent loss of heart and brain function that can impact their lives for the remainder of their time,” said Sprague. “We are a small hospital, but we are a good hospital, and we are essential to this community and the surrounding communities.”

Massachusetts Nurses Association President Katie Murphy said the eight Massachusetts hospitals facing uncertainty are being threatened with closure due to the “mismanagement and corporate greed” of Steward Health Care.

“From this vantage point I can tell you, there is no justification for the loss of any bed or any service in Massachusetts at this time, and certainly no justification of those currently owned by Steward,” said Murphy. “The loss of any of these hospitals would be catastrophic, not only for the communities served by these facilities, but for all the hospitals and communities left to absorb the collateral damage of our state’s failure to protect the residents of the commonwealth.”

Murphy called for the Healey administration, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell and the state Legislature to be “pushing any and all levers of government power at their disposal to save these hospitals.”

Merrimack Valley Project President Paul Gaudet, who represents Lowell’s St. Patrick Parish on the organization’s board, said that losing NVMC and the other Steward hospitals is “not an option.”

“We must impress upon the governor, especially, to use her power to save this hospital. We will not be satisfied by the laments and hand wringing by those who could protect our hospital, our access to health care, and the livelihood of so many area professionals, support staff and other area businesses,” said Gaudet. “This community is being threatened with the theft of a hospital. We call upon political leaders to stop the thieves as they head to the exits.”

A spokesperson from the state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said in a statement Monday evening that the state is working to maintain the existing health care ecosystem in Massachusetts.

“The Healey-Driscoll Administration is committed to preserving access to safe and high-quality care for all individuals and communities now served by Steward hospitals,” said the EOHHS spokesperson. “We are working to protect jobs for the dedicated health care providers and support staff who come to work in the Steward hospitals every day for the patients they serve, with the goal of maintaining the stability of the health care ecosystem that has long defined Massachusetts as a leader in health and medicine.”