Boston convenes working group to plan for future healthcare access after Carney Hospital closure

The Wu administration announced the 32 members who will sit on a working group dedicated to studying the impacts of Steward Health Care’s decision to close Carney Hospital and planning for future healthcare access at the Dorchester site.

The working group, co-chaired by Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, the commissioner of public health for the City of Boston, and Michael Curry, the president and CEO of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, will meet over the next three months and then issue recommendations to Gov. Maura Healey and Mayor Michelle Wu, the city said.

“I am very excited about getting started with this work and really moving past the Steward debacle, and really getting down to the business of improving access to health services in Boston,” Ojikutu said at a Tuesday press briefing.

Ojikutu said residents who sought healthcare at the former Carney Hospital, which shuttered on Aug. 31 as part of the for-profit Steward Health Care’s bankruptcy proceedings, are still feeling the gap in service.

“Certainly there are people who are still wondering where exactly they should go and access care,” Ojikutu said. “There are people who are still questioning where to access their medical records. There are people who are having to go much further for access to emergency care.

“So I think that we’re all aware that there is a significant health gap that remains,” she added, “given that the hospital is closed and part of the work through this working group is going to be focused in on informing people and letting people know exactly what it is they should be doing in the short term to ensure that they have access to health care services.”

Ojikutu acknowledged, when asked, the barriers the city may face in its plans to keep the former hospital site reserved for healthcare, saying that it has not been in discussions with the property owners over future development plans.

She referenced the position that’s already been taken by Mayor Wu, who sent a scathing letter to the property owners, Edward Aldag and Karl Kuchel, chief executive officers of Medical Properties Trust and Macquarie Infrastructure Partners, respectively, after the closure was announced by Steward Health Care.

In the letter, Wu said her administration “will oppose any effort by ownership to rezone the property for uses other than the provision of health care.”

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The recommendations of the working group, Ojikutu said, “will be ones that we will take to” the property owners, “and ensure that, or at least look for a way forward in terms of what they may be looking at or what they may be considering, versus what we think is in the best interest of the community and what the community’s health care needs are.”

“I think that the mayor has been very clear in her objectives and ensuring that healthcare services will remain the priority at that site,” Ojikutu said, “and that she and the administration will use every tool that we have in order to ensure that this site, this property, this land, remains a site for healthcare services for the community.”

The working group includes two members of Congress, U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Stephen Lynch; two city councilors, John FitzGerald, who represents the area, and Ruthzee Louijeune, the Council president; two members of the state Legislature, Sen. Nick Collins and Rep. Brandy Fluker Oakley; and the former president of Carney Hospital, Stan McLaren; along with representatives from the city’s healthcare sector and neighborhood organizations.

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