By Nicole Breskin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
GREENWICH VILLAGE — The urgent care facility set to replace recently shuttered St. Vincent’s Medical Center will likely not be at the hospital's old Greenwich village site, DNAinfo has learned.
The planned urgent care center, which is slated to be operational in September, will initially open at the hospital's West 12th Street location, but it still does not have a permanent home, according to a spokesman for North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System.
“The idea is to make the urgent care center accessible to residents,” said Terry Lynam, a vice president at North Shore-LIJ. “We plan to temporarily utilize St. Vincent’s, but we haven’t identified an exact location for the long term.”
North Shore-LIJ, which will run the facility in partnership with Lenox Hill, is currently focusing on possible locations within Greenwich Village, Lynam added, but would not name the sites they were considering.
The temporary use of St. Vincent’s real estate for the urgent care facility will likely need to be approved by a bankruptcy court regulating how the hospital will pay off its $1-billion-plus debt to creditors, according to the New York Times.
North Shore-LIJ Chief Operating Officer Mark Solazzo is slated to talk to community members at a forum at the Little Red School House Monday night at 196 Bleecker St. to explain the status of plans for the urgent care facility.
Despite the news that the facility might not be located at the West 12th Street site, several community members have not given up hope on housing an emergency room there. State Sen. Tom Duane convened a panel discussion on the issue last month, and civil rights activist Yetta Kurland has a petition running for her group Coalition for a New Village Hospital.
According to North Shore-LIJ, the new urgent care facility will serve 25,000 patients annually with 24-hour service.
