By Tara Kyle
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The long-promised 24-hour clinic at the old St. Vincent’s emergency room site is dead — but a new “Urgicenter” is now on its way eight blocks north this fall.
North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System, which intended to open the temporary facility at the defunct hospital’s 12th street location before plans fell through over rent demands and Catholic traditions, has now inked a deal with umbrella health operator VillageCare.
“The key here for us is it allows us to move in to a permanent home for the urgent care center,” North Shore-LIJ spokesperson Terry Lynam said, emphasizing that the planned 12th Street site would have had to vacated most likely within a year.
The new 121A West 20th Street home currently houses VillageCare’s primary care heath center — one of many West side community health centers that has had to hire new staff to accommodate a rise in patients following St. Vincent’s closure.
When the new Urgicenter opens, hopefully in early October, according to Lynam, it will initially share space with the 10,000 square foot primary care center, before building out the other half of the 20,000 square foot building.
That partnership will bring new programs including pediatrics, ear, nose and throat and imaging to the primary care center. It will also, Lynam said, offer urgent care patients a place to go for follow-up primary care, as well as connect to other VillageCare centers providing rehabilitation, palliative care and other services.
“The closing of St. Vincent’s is a major loss to the downtown community,” said VillageCare president and CEO Emma DeVito. “VillageCare welcomes this opportunity to collaborate with North Shore-LIJ and bring these important, needed urgent care services to the community.”
