The state Department of Public Health will hold a public hearing on Thursday, Jan. 30 regarding Cambridge Health Alliance’s proposed closure of the Emergency Department at Somerville Hospital and replace it with an urgent care center, depriving this community with access to emergency care 24/7.
What: DPH public hearing on the proposed closure of Somerville Hospital’s Emergency Department
When: Thursday, Jan. 30 at 6 p.m.
Where: The Center for Arts at the Amory, 191 Highland Ave., Somerville MA
Opposition to the proposal has been growing, and community members, local public officials and staff at the hospital are expected to attend the hearing to speak against the closure.
For more than 128 years, Somerville Hospital has provided emergency services and a health care safety net to Somerville and surrounding communities. The Somerville Hospital ER services a growing population of more than 81,000 residents, with more than 28,000 emergency room visits each year, including patients suffering heart attacks, strokes and other conditions where every minute waiting for care can be a matter of life and death. Among those impacted by this closure will be a number of vulnerable patients, including the poor, homeless and immigrant populations who depend on the facility for care. It follows the closing of the emergency department at Lynn Union Hospital and Lawrence Memorial Hospital, and at time when emergency department wait times in Massachusetts are among the longest in the nation.
