February 25, 2025
A view of the exterior of the Seton Medical Center, an office building at the rear of the Carney Hospital campus, as seen in August 2024. Seth Daniel photo
The last vestiges of medical care offered by about two dozen physicians who have maintained office space inside a three-story building on the Carney Hospital campus will end in May with the closing of the complex, according to sources familiar with the property.
Tenants in the Seton Medical Building— including specialists in family medicine, podiatry, surgery, cardiology, and other practices— were informed of the closure in a “lease termination” letter sent to them on Feb. 21. The letter, signed by the vice-president of Healthcare Realty Services, LLC, informed the doctors that their lease agreements will end on May 22, 2025. They are expected to vacate the building by that date.
The Seton building, which is located at the rear of the Dorchester Avenue campus facing Dorchester Park, has remained open in the months since the main hospital and its emergency room were shuttered on Aug. 30, 2024.
The abrupt shutdown came amid a bankruptcy crisis impacting the hospital’s parent company— Steward Health Care—and was facilitated by state regulators who said that it was not possible to keep the Dorchester hospital open because of a lack of interest from alternative operators.
Five other Steward hospitals in the state were kept open through a deal brokered by the Healey administration. A second Steward hospital, in Ayer, Mass., was also closed in the process, which included an expedited timeline for shutting the two facilities.
The Seton building, built in 1978, has long been a destination for thousands of people in Dorchester, Mattapan, and surrounding communities to visit primary care doctors and specialists and access lab services. When the Carney closed, a number of Carney-affiliated doctors relocated into the Seton building to continue seeing patients as part of their private practices.
A 33-member working group commissioned by the governor and Mayor Wu last year to make recommendations about what to do next on the Carney campus is expected to issue a report in early March.
City Councillor John FitzGerald, one of the working group members, said the news about the Seton Building tenants is “obviously sad and stressful as the primary care services were the last of the healthcare services being provided from this location.”
He added: “While it is my hope to one day have them back open, and further supported by even more healthcare uses on the site as well, right now we hope those that seek primary services there will not have a lapse in care and that their doctors are being helped to relocate to a convenient location.”
Requests for comment from the realty management company have not been returned.
