To the Editor:

As a member and also last chair of the Carney Hospital Foundation Board, along with my wife, then Dorchester District 3 Boston City Councillor, we had front row seats to the debacle surrounding Cerberus, Steward Health, and the possible closure of Carney Hospital.

About 25 years ago, the Daughters of Charity, who operated Carney, realized that the changing face of healthcare demanded a new operational business model to ensure the hospital’s future and keep improving its product. Into this climate stepped Mass General with an offer for it and its parent company to affiliate with Carney. This news excited the staff and all started looking with deep optimism toward a future when Carney would do well and healthcare in our neighborhoods would immeasurably improve.

However, Cardinal Bernard Law had another idea, one that led to where we find ourselves today. To be as succinct as possible in relating a complicated history, he proposed a parish-based health care system run by Caritas Christi, required Carney to join, and saw it fail. Into this breach came the sale to Cerberus/Steward and this history finds us in our present predicament.

The Commonwealth is apparently providing funds to assist in the sale of six other hospitals in the Steward chain. We should also be demanding government assistance to prevent our neighborhoods from becoming a hospital desert which will ultimately destabilize health care in our communities and cost lives.

If Mass General/Brigham were to look anew at Carney, as it did 25 years ago, they would probably find an institution that still would add value to their brand and bring healthcare stability to Dorchester, Boston's largest neighborhood.

Time is running out and we need to bring Carney back into Boston's healthcare equation. There is no way the nearest hospital can absorb the loss of Carney Hospital.

Sincerely,
Larry and Maureen Feeney