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As a result of this relationship, physicians from Children's Hospital Boston now provide neonatal services at three Caritas facilities including the Level III neonatal intensive care unit "NICU" located at Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston and the Level II special care nursery programs located at Caritas Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, Mass. and Caritas Holy Family Hospital and Medical Center in Methuen, Mass. Caritas neonatal patients requiring the most critical care have access to the world-renowned clinical services available in the NICU at Children's Hospital Boston.

"Providing around the clock care by neonatologists is essential for our smallest and most vulnerable patients," said John B. Chessare, MD, MPH, interim president and CEO, Caritas Christi Health Care. "Unfortunately, there is often a shortage of such highly specialized physicians. By partnering with Children's Hospital Boston physicians, we at Caritas not only ensure access to these specialists, but also provide comfort to our patients and families who know they are receiving care from some of the best doctors in the world."

Children's Hospital Boston has one of the strongest neonatology programs in the country with expertise in caring for premature newborns and newborns with congenital malformations, and a multidisciplinary Advanced Fetal Care Program, as well as research expertise in such topics as neonatal lung development, retinopathy of prematurity, neonatal immunology, and developmental biology.

"We are extremely proud of our neonatologists and their NICU support staff," said Gary R. Fleisher, MD, pediatrician-in-chief and chair, department of medicine, Children's Hospital Boston. "They have earned an international reputation for providing exceptional care to the most critically ill newborns, and we are all very excited to expand this care throughout the region with our new relationship with Caritas."

Caritas Christi Health Care, the second largest health care system in New England, is an integrated health care delivery network providing exceptional care to more than one million people annually. Caritas Christi operates the following acute care hospitals throughout Massachusetts: Caritas Good Samaritan Medical Center, Brockton; Caritas Norwood Hospital, Norwood; Caritas Carney Hospital, Dorchester; Caritas Holy Family Hospital and Medical Center, Methuen; Saint Anne's Hospital, Fall River; and Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, Boston, the system's tertiary care referral center. Caritas Christi also operates a 400-physician group practice, an academic medical research institute, a health sciences college, a clinical laboratory network, a community-based human services agency for women and children, centers for hospice and home care, and an international medical services agency for the poor.