Somerville Hospital To Close Emergency Department

SOMERVILLE, MA — Somerville Hospital is closing its Emergency Department and replacing it with an urgent care center next spring. The Cambridge Health Alliance's Board of Trustees voted Tuesday to convert the emergency room into a 12-hour clinic, citing a shift in community demographics.

"This is not a financially driven decision but one that we believe better meets the needs of the community," CHA officials wrote in their Healthy Somerville 2022 plan. "It fills a gap between primary and emergency care that is accessible by all, regardless of ability to pay, with culturally sensitive providers and interpreters in more than 70 languages."

According to the CHA, Somerville residents skew younger, with the number of older adults living in the city dropping 18 percent since 1990. Emergency care use has fallen 16 percent and residents' need for hospital admission is down 26 percent since 2012, the organization said.

Visits to the Somerville Emergency Department have decreased 36 percent in 10 years, and the CHA found many residents chose to go to the Cambridge emergency room on the Somerville-Cambridge line for more severe needs. Much of the care needed at the Somerville emergency room was closer to urgent care than an Emergency Department level, the CHA said.

Lisa Valley-Shah, co-chair of the Massachusetts Nurses Association and a nurse in the Somerville Hospital Emergency Department for 35 years, said they began to see a drop in patients in 2009, when the CHA closed the inpatient beds. Ambulance companies did not want to bring patients to Somerville Hospital, which became a satellite emergency care facility, if there was a chance they would get sent to Cambridge Hospital later that day, according to Valley-Shah.

The urgent care center will treat injuries or illnesses that require immediate attention, but are not serious enough for an emergency room visit, including fevers, sore throats, coughs, falls, sprains, broken bones, bug and animal bites and sunburn. The CHA shared a full list of ailments on its website.

Valley-Shah said this shift will impact the hospital's most vulnerable patients, such as undocumented immigrants, the homeless and psychiatric patients. A 12-hour center would not be able to care for a homeless patient seeking food, clothing and shelter in the middle of the night or a during a snowstorm, Valley-Shah cited as an example.

Valley-Shah anticipates overcrowding and longer wait times at nearby emergency rooms.

"Anyone in Somerville having an emergency will be transported out of Somerville and that all involves time, extra time that someone's life could be saved," she said.

The urgent care center will be staffed by medicine physicians and registered nurses and will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. Patients will not be required to make an appointment and may use the center's services regardless of their ability to pay, according to the CHA. The organization also promises a higher level of expertise and services not available in many urgent care settings.

Editor's Note: An earlier version of the story stated the Cambridge Health Alliance took over in 2009. While it did close the inpatient unit that year, the CHA took over in 1996.