Caritas (MA) nurses OK 5-year pact

Members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association at four Caritas Christi Health Care hospitals, including St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton and Carney Hospital in Dorchester, yesterday ratified a five-year contract that gives nearly 1,700 registered nurses pay raises and a new retirement plan.

The votes at St. Elizabeth’s, Carney, Norwood Hospital, and Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton capped months of often tense bargaining with executives of Boston-based Caritas. The financially stressed Catholic hospital system is awaiting approval by Francis X. Spina, associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, of its deal to be bought by a New York private equity firm.