As the future of Steward hospitals in Massachusetts remains uncertain, state officials said Wednesday they’re looking into ensuring placements for vital medical and nursing students in case facilities close.

“It is a big issue, but I would say in particular, it’s a huge issue in nursing because there are very limited nursing placements across the state,” said Department of Public Health Commissioner Robert Goldstein at a virtual Public Health Council meeting Wednesday morning.

“And as everyone knows, we have a nursing workforce shortage,” Goldstein continued. “We would like to make sure that we continue to graduate nurses at the rate that we are — increasing the rate of graduation. And so that means that we need to make sure they have clinical placements.”

Steward Health System owns nine hospitals in Massachusetts, all of which face uncertain futures in light of Steward’s ongoing massive financial crisis. The hospitals teach numerous medical students — largely from the Boston University School of Medicine — medical residents both based at the facilities and transferred in to assist, and nursing students at almost every hospital, Goldstein said.

Steward has announced it’s intent to sell off the remaining Massachusetts hospitals, and St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River received publicized interest from potential buyer Suncoast Health within the last week.

In the meantime, the Department of Public Health (DPH) has established teams at every Steward hospital to communicate with staff and monitor quality and safety standards.

Goldstein said the issue of training placements has been “very much on my mind,” and within the work DPH is doing, staff are identifying the number and cataloguing all the students at each facility as they work on contingency plans for closures. The commissioner did not specify how many students may be impacted at any facility.

Massachusetts Nurses Association Director of Nursing Judith Pare said the issue of nursing student placements “just adds another layer to the crisis.”

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Though Massachusetts is small, Pare said, it has more nursing programs than many states and “some of the premium programs in the country” attracting students from all over.

“So we place a lot of students,” Pare said. “And with Norwood (Hospital) been closed now for two years and Brockton (Hospital) being closed because of the fire, we were already struggling for placements. This is just going to make to make matters worse.”

Despite the shortage, she added, the recent crisis and height of pandemic chaos have forced nursing students and infrastructure to readjust and adapt several times already.

“Nurses are nothing if not flexible,” said Pare. “We will have to deal with that if something happens, if these hospitals suddenly closed, which we certainly don’t want to happen. The bigger issue is the impact on this already marginalized community of folks that desperately need these hospitals and desperately need the care.”