At a virtual hearing in federal bankruptcy court Tuesday, Judge Christopher Lopez in Houston said he was focused on ensuring patient safety as the chain reckons with its crushing debts: ”Real people receiving real care in real time . . . are at the forefront of my mind today.”

The hearing was the start of a months-long process to get the hospitals on a sound financial footing. The court must sort through all of Steward’s financial transactions over the past few years and determine which creditors will be paid back, all while the hospitals continue serving thousands of patients.

During the hearing, Steward also disclosed that it is conducting an internal investigation into “any claims or causes of action of the company against insiders of the company,” according to a presentation from its lawyers. “This investigation is ongoing.”

The investigation is being overseen by a three-person committee that includes independent Steward board members Alan Carr and William Transier plus John Castellano, an investment banker from AlixPartners working on the company’s restructuring.

The group, called the transformation committee, also has “full and exclusive authority” to oversee financing, sales, and restructuring transactions, according to the presentation.

The aggressive timeline for sale of the hospitals was a condition of a $75 million loan Steward needs while it reorganizes its debts. The company owes more than $1 billion to “secured” lenders, who received collateral to protect their loans, and more than $7 billion on long-term leases and loans from its main landlord, Medical Properties Trust, according to the company’s presentation at the hearing. Steward also owes an additional $1 billion in unsecured debts to other service providers and contractors.

The latest loan obligates the company to conduct a rapid sale process, Ray Schrock, Steward’s lawyer, told Judge Lopez during the hearing.

Under the loan terms, Steward would have to take bids on all its hospitals except nine in Florida by June 25, with an auction to be held on June 28. Bids would be due on the nine Florida hospitals by July 26, with an auction on July 30. The company has already begun seeking potential buyers for all of its hospitals, Schrock said.

“I’m not going to say we are happy with the timeline,” Schrock said regarding the June deadline for the first group of sales. “It’s not feasible.” The later Florida deadline was “more realistic,” he said.

Steward had already received letters of interest from potential buyers offering to buy some of the hospitals, Schrock said. But he added that hospital sales typically require approval from state, local, and sometimes federal authorities.

Bankruptcy attorney Adam Ruttenberg, a partner at Beacon Law Group in Boston who is not working on the Steward case, said it was unlikely the hospitals could be sold by the end of the June because of the required regulatory approvals.

“It depends on what you mean by sell,” Ruttenberg said. “Are we talking about having a buyer identified? Seven weeks to get bidders and identify who your best bidders are, that’s not unrealistic. Or are we talking about having a sale approved and closed? That strikes me as wishful thinking.”

Boards often appoint special committees, such as the Steward transformation committee, with the power to authorize transactions and investigate insiders in bankruptcy cases, Ruttenberg said.

“It’s standard in any case where there are hints of wrongdoing,” he said.

While no allegations of wrongdoing have publicly been aired as part of the days-old bankruptcy case, the company has faced dozens of lawsuits, including allegations it has not met contractual obligations to various business partners and has failed to pay its bills.

In addition, Steward has been subjected to increasing criticism from public officials. Governor Maura Healey, for instance, has raised the possibility that Steward may have broken the law in its business dealings. “We don’t have enough to know what they’ve done, whether it’s criminal or illegal, but to me it really smells,” she told the Globe in February.

The sales timeline could be altered, particularly if Steward found a different lender. Steward is also seeking to sell its doctor network, Stewardship Health, but a deal with insurance giant UnitedHealth has been slowed by regulatory concerns. “We’re still working through that,” Schrock said.

In the end, the company may retain some of the hospitals, Schrock said. Healey wants Steward to sell all of its facilities in the state.

“We are going to look at reorganizing around a smaller footprint of hospitals,” Schrock said. The Florida hospitals are the “most profitable portion,” he said.

Andrew Troop, a lawyer at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman who is representing Massachusetts, urged the judge to approve an order allowing doctors and other Steward employees to continue receiving their pay. “This is not a typical case,” Troop said. “Patients are waiting for the outcome of this hearing.”

Lopez said he planned to approve the order because he wanted doctors treating patients to “have nothing in the back of their minds.”

Steward did not assent to everything its lenders requested, Schrock said. Some lenders wanted Steward to issue notices under the US Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act that it could conduct mass layoffs at hospitals within 60 days. But Steward pushed back, Shrock said, because “we don’t think there’s going to be any closures.”

Since Steward’s cash crunch started last year, Medical Property Trust has deferred $166 million in rent and injected $141 million of cash into the hospital operator, Thomas Patterson, a lawyer for the real estate company said.

In Massachusetts, Steward’s hospitals include St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, Carney Hospital in Dorchester, Good Samaritan in Brockton, Holy Family in Methuen and Haverhill, Morton Hospital in Taunton, Nashoba Valley in Ayer, and Saint Anne’s in Fall River. It also runs Norwood Hospital, which has been closed since 2020 due to flooding.

Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman. Robert Weisman can be reached at robert.weisman@globe.com.