Members of a committee tasked with charting the future use of the Carney Hospital site in Dorchester met for the first time at Boston City Hall on Thursday. The 90-minute session was “designed to set the foundation for future discussions and recommendations,” according to the group’s co-chair, Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, who is the city’s Commissioner of Public Health and executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission.

In a briefing with reporters on Friday, Dr. Ojikutu said the group’s introductory meeting included comments from Mayor Wu and was aimed at setting clear “goals and expectations” about the “overall charge of the group.”

“We talked about the fact that we wanted our work and our recommendations to be grounded in the principles of equity,” she said. ”We want whatever we're doing in this area and for this community to be high quality, to focus on accessibility and to be focused on culturally and linguistically appropriate care. I think about innovation and really wanting to provide state-of-the-art care for a community that hasn't necessarily had equal access to that type of care.”

The group heard a summary of data about health disparities in the former Carney’s catchment area— which is primarily Dorchester and Mattapan, but also includes Hyde Park and Quincy. The hospital closed its doors in August amid a bankruptcy crisis prompted by its former owners Steward Health Care System and expedited by state public health leaders who engineered a plan to save several other Steward hospitals in the state, but not Carney or Nashoba Valley Medical Center, which is also now closed.

“I think that what was revealing about that wasn't so much that disparities exist or inequity exists. It's the fact that the reality is that these inequities have existed for a long time. They existed while Carney Carney was operational. And the fact that we know that they will continue to exist unless we do something differently.

"So really to frame this working group around the fact that we want this to be an opportunity to improve on the health service delivery as well as— even if it's social service needs,—whatever it is that's needed in this community to promote health and wellness. We want this to be an opportunity to do things better for this particular community to envision a better future in terms of health outcomes.”

A more focused discussion of what form that re-use might take at the Carney’s now-largely empty Dorchester Avenue property will come at future meetings. The group will next convene on Nov. 15. A public listening session is expected in late November or early December.

City Councillor John FitzGerald, who is a member of the 32-person working group, agreed with Dr. Ojikutu that the first meeting was a productive one. FitzGerald said he left encouraged that “we have the right people in the room to offer up their experience, expertise and feedback about what’s going on on the ground since Carney’s closure.”

“I think that’s vital to decide what’s going on at the site going forward,” FitzGerald added. “One thing we want to clarify is that everyone is in agreement that a hospital and health care services is what belongs on that site.”

Dr. Ojikutu said it’s too early to draw firm conclusions about how Carney’s closure has impacted city neighborhoods and individuals, but she added: “It's clear that there are significant gaps that have developed.”

“We did talk a bit about community health centers and the fact that they've noted an increase in urgent care visits, urgent care needs that previously were probably managed at Carney Hospital. There’s certainly increased wait times for primary care physicians,” she said.

There is some activity still based at the Carney campus. A Boston EMS ambulance crew continues to operate from a garage next to the shuttered emergency department. And some physicians continue to see patients in an office building— the Seton Medical Building— located at the rear of the Carney complex facing Dorchester Park.

Dr. Ojikutu said that the Massachusetts Department of Health has a help-line that's available Monday through Friday, 8 a.m.- 6 p.m. for former Carney patients. The telephone number is 617-468-2189.

“They can still use that number to access care and find out where their provider has gone,” she said.

The working group will be meeting “approximately every other week in this large group setting,” Dr. Ojikutu told the Reporter. “And then, as needed, we are having smaller group discussions around specific issues, because there are many different nuances to this that will weigh into the development of the recommendations that we hope to develop by the end of the process.”