Southie not getting urgent care clinic
A for-profit urgent care clinic that drew concern from South Boston elected officials and community members will not be going forward on West Broadway after the applicant backed out.
The city’s Zoning Board of Appeal yesterday approved American Family Care’s request to withdraw the application which called for the creation of an urgent care clinic at 457-469A West Broadway, just a block away from the nonprofit South Boston Community Health Center.
City Councilors Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy and state Sen. Nick Collins, all from Southie, were against the clinic due to the potential negative financial impacts it could’ve had on the existing community health center at 409 West Broadway.
“I’d like to thank my neighbors and community organizations for speaking loud and clear on their serious concerns,” Flynn said in a statement to the Herald. “For-profit urgent cares in close proximity to our neighborhood community health centers could potentially threaten their viability and have a devastating impact on healthcare access and quality of care.”
The City Council last week approved Flynn’s order to hold a hearing on how forprofit urgent care clinics impact nonprofit health centers.
While urgent care centers provide walk-in services for patients experiencing non-emergency medical issues such as small injuries and minor infections, some of them are for-profit, Flynn said. That means the businesses rely on “investments from private equity firms and venture capital funds,” he wrote in his hearing order.
In a memo to the ZBA last week, the Boston Planning & Development Agency recommended approval of the project which would have placed the urgent care clinic in a “pre-existing but untenanted first floor space.”
American Family Care operates more than 200 facilities across 26 states, treating nearly 3 million patients a year, according to its company website. It looks to have more than 500 clinics nationwide in the next five years.
American Family Care did not immediately return a Herald request for comment.