Southcoast Health announced last Friday that it is considering buying a Fall River hospital owned by financially floundering Steward Health Care, with the goal of preserving care for patients and preventing the facility from potentially closing. Steward also owns Dorchester’s Carney Hospital.

Southcoast Health CEO David McCready said his organization has a “strong interest” in acquiring St. Anne’s Hospital.

“St. Anne’s patients and employees are part of our community; they are our family members, friends, and neighbors,” McCready said in a community message Friday, which was posted on the not-for-profit health care system’s website. He said his company’s message to Steward is: “The best option for St. Anne’s Hospital, its patients, its employees, and our community, is for St. Anne’s to join the Southcoast Health family.”

In a separate letter concerning Steward, US Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey on Friday demanded that CEO Ralph de la Torre explain “years of mismanagement, private equity schemes, and executive profiteering” at the for-profit company he leads.

The senators wrote that Steward has hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, “raising questions about unpaid vendors, patient care, and job losses for front-line health care workers, while creating ongoing uncertainty about whether hospitals will close, and if not, how they will be restructured.”

“You are attempting to make a last-minute deal for your remaining assets that would let you walk away, while leaving Gov. Healey and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services to scramble for a solution to preserve care,” the senators wrote to Steward’s CEO.

Southcoast Health operates three hospitals in Massachusetts, including Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford, and Tobey Hospital in Wareham. The system’s next step is to conduct “thorough due diligence” to determine whether any type of acquisition with Steward is feasible, McCready wrote.

A Steward spokesperson, asked if the company was also interested in the transaction, did not directly address a deal for St. Anne’s Hospital.

“Steward Health Care is working with state officials and others to transition ownership of the Massachusetts hospitals in a way that everyone agrees is best for patients, our employees, and the Commonwealth,” the spokesperson said in a statement to the News Service.