Task force on Carney Hospital plans broader focus on social determinants of health

The working group assigned by Gov. Maura Healey to figure out what to do with the shuttered Carney Hospital is planning to look more broadly at the roots of health disparities in the Dorchester community.

The group had originally planned to complete its recommendations by now. But the nuanced nature of their work has required additional time, said Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, the working group co-chair and head of the Boston Public Health Commission. She told GBH News on Thursday that the group now plans to make its final recommendations on the site of the former hospital in March.

Ojikutu said the 32-member group has identified gaps in emergency services, urgent care and behavioral health in the community that was served by the hospital. She said addressing the intersection of those health care needs as well as societal needs, such as transportation, intrigued the group and will influence its planned recommendations.

“We’ve also explored innovative health delivery models,” Ojikutu said. “So, ways to combine health care with health-related social needs and actually think about broader community-level social determinants of health.”

What that may look like, Ojikutu said, is a campus with health care services, alongside day programs for seniors or workforce development services.

“I think it’s important to really think innovatively about what we could do that would truly improve health and wellness for residents of the city of Boston,” she said.

It was taking this more holistic approach that caused the extended timeline of the group’s recommendations. Carney closed in August as part of the bankruptcy of Steward Health Care, which owned the hospital.

The working group was established in October with a 90-day deadline to present its recommendations to Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. The past four months have been “a complicated process,” Ojikutu said, providing many nuances that the group has had to be more comprehensive in its work.

“The reality is that that area has suffered from some pretty deep health inequities for a long time,” Ojikutu said. “It’s not just about fixing what may be worsened, but it’s fixing what may be deeply embedded in regards to disparities throughout these communities.”

One of those nuances is that Carney was a major employer in the area. Valerie Burton worked at Carney Hospital on weekends for 21 years. A Dorchester resident, Carney’s closure has left Burton without her weekend job. It also means she, and countless others, have to trek to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Milton for care, which can be challenging to reach for those without means.

“We feel that we lost a great deal in our community,” Burton said, who is also president of the River Street Civic Association. “We have people in the community that have been going to Carney for most of their lives and they had a connection with it.”

The Carney working group has no future community engagement sessions planned before making its final recommendations. The last one they held was in December, and Burton spoke up about the physical and monetary challenges the hospital’s closure was creating.

She told GBH News she felt heard by the working group and is hopeful that a medical facility of some kind will return — but the need for that return is urgent.

“Time is definitely of the essence,” Burton said. “It’s definitely a need — to have something close in our community that can service us at this trying time.”

Mayor Wu and the Boston Public Health Commission released a report on Thursday on the city’s commitment to address over the next decade the gap in life expectancy between the city’s predominantly white neighborhoods and its neighborhoods of color.