To the Editor:

As someone lives four blocks from Carney Hospital, whose family and relatives have been patients there and whose father-in-law worked there for over 30 years, I can tell you: we’re worried sick about the Carney. We want to keep Carney Hospital open.

If you live in Dorchester or Mattapan, giving ambulances the option to go to the Carney emergency room rather than drive to Boston Medical Center could very well be a matter of life and death.

But if—in fact— it becomes impossible for Carney to remain open as a full acute-care hospital, we need to think through the steps that our leaders— Gov. Healey and her appointed public health team, Mayor Wu, lawmakers— can take to transition the facility.

I asked Paul Hattis, an expert in public health matters and a fellow at the Lown Institute, for his thoughts. First, he says it’s critical for this part of Boston to maintain an emergency department, but perhaps with a smaller number of beds. That way, critically ill patients can be seen and treated and then kept for a day or so, before they are transferred to larger, acute care hospitals.

Secondly, he suggests keeping beds dedicated to mental health and substance use disorders, which Carney has now. There’s a significant shortage of in-patient beds especially for geriatric psychiatric patients, but inpatient beds across all ages are still likely needed especially for the Dorchester neighborhood.

Third, he recommends maintenance of outpatient services like behavioral health, dialysis, and primary care for patients with chronic disease and other problems.

-Lew Finger