Activists and workers press the state to keep Steward's Carney Hospital open

State health officials are set to hold a public hearing in Dorchester Tuesday, the first of two hearing scheduled this week on plans to close two Steward Health Care hospitals in Massachusetts.

The closures of Carney Hospital in Dorchester and Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer were approved by a Texas bankruptcy judge in late July as negotiations continue over the potential sale of the five other Steward hospitals in the state. Hospital workers, patients and others are rallying before the hearings, urging the state to take steps to keep the facilities open.

WBUR's Morning Edition talks with Bill Walczak, a community activist who served as former president of Carney, and Elaine Graves, who has been a nurse at Carney for 48 years, to hear about why they are pressing the state to keep the hospital open.