Members of a panel set up to make recommendations about the re-use of the shuttered Carney Hospital campus in Dorchester gathered for their eighth meeting on Jan. 30. The 33-member working group is co-chaired by Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, the commissioner of Public Health for the City of Boston, and Michael Curry, president and CEO of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers.

“We are wrapping up our work and spent time during this eighth meeting talking about short-term and long-term recommendations,” said Ojikutu, who also told The Reporter that she now expects their report to Gov. Healey and Mayor Wu to be finalized in the first part of March.

“This has been a complicated process and has brought together very seasoned and well-respected experts who have some thoughts,” said Ojikutu. “We’ve delved deeply into the expert thinking as well as community and resident needs and concerns, and it’s taking some time to pull that together.”

She added that there has been no departure from the group’s original mandate — articulated mainly by Mayor Wu last year— that Carney’s campus be re-purposed for the delivery of health care services.

“That is our goal,” she said. “It’s very clear that there are gaps and people want that site utilized, at least in part, for the delivery of some kind of health care,” she added, noting that emergency department and urgent care needs top the list.

“I think what we’re seeing right now in the system is that we have a lot of people waiting for services,” she said. “The loss of what was provided by Carney exacerbated the situation.”

The hospital’s doors were closed to patients last August amid a bankruptcy case impacting the Steward Health Care System.

The closure — and the shut-down of Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer, Mass.— was facilitated and fast-tracked by state public health officials as the Healey administration sought to keep five other Steward properties open and functioning. The administration used its eminent domain powers to expedite the transfer of ownership of Brighton’s St. Elizabeth Medical Center, but declined to intervene in Dorchester, claiming that there was no one willing to operate the Carney.

Ojikutu said that her state counterpart— state Public Health Commissioner Dr. Robbie Goldstein— has been an active participant in all eight of the Carney working group meetings held to date, as well as a public meeting held in Dorchester in December. The meetings of the working group have been private and closed to media.

“This is a collaborative effort,” Ojikutu said.