Four years after St. Vincent’s Hospital closed, a new facility is opening in the West Village. North Shore-LIJ is debuting a free-standing emergency center across the street from the former St. Vincent site.
It’s an E.R. without a hospital. The so-called HealthPlex will offer 24-hour emergency care, outpatient surgery, and a range of specialists. It won’t allow patients to stay overnight, so many people suffering from heart attacks or strokes will go to other hospitals, or be transferred to them by ambulance.
The HealthPlex will occupy the former headquarters of the National Maritime Union between West 12th and 13th streets on Seventh Avenue. Despite its location, the new facility is technically a satellite of the Upper East Side’s Lenox Hill, which the fast-growing North Shore-LIJ added to its network in 2010.
Supporters say the HealthPlex is an economical way to restore medical services to the neighborhood – and a possible model for other places where aging hospitals are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. A free-standing E.R. opened in the Bronx last spring, and Brooklyn’s Long Island College Hospital is on track to become one, too.
But many neighbors lament losing the full-service St. Vincent’s, which has been transformed into luxury condos, and worry that transferring patients could be dangerous.
David Sandman, Senior Vice President at the New York State Health Foundation, says the new facility will serve as a test case for the new kind of care. "It's not a substitute for primary care and it's not a full service hospital but it's right in between," he said.
The HealthPlex is scheduled to open its emergency center next week, with additional services to follow in 2015.