Caritas (Boston) warns of 2 hospital closures

Caritas Christi Health Care executives have told union negotiators they will shutter St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton and Carney Hospital in Dorchester if they can’t close a deal for the six-hospital chain to be bought by a New York private equity firm.

The warning was made during contract talks last week with the Massachusetts Nurses Association, according to two people who attended the meeting. The association represents nurses at four Caritas hospitals.

At the Sept. 15 session — which focused on nurses at the flagship St. Elizabeth’s — executives also talked of mounting financial pressures stemming from an increase in the Catholic hospital system’s unfunded pension liability, said the two people at the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the negotiations.