Venerable N.Y. Hospital Closed in 2010 to Reopen as E.R.

Four years after St. Vincent’s Hospital shut down amid bankruptcy proceedings, a portion of the Manhattan institution is set to reopen as a standalone emergency room, reflecting a growing health-care trend, The New York Times reports.

The West Village facility will be called Lenox Hill HealthPlex and operated by the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. “We’ve given back the community the No. 1 thing we think the community needed the most when St. Vincent’s Hospital closed,” said Warren B. Licht, director of medical affairs for the new E.R.

Amid health-care closures and consolidations, free-standing emergency rooms have sprouted up in gentrifying neighborhoods such as Greenwich Village that were once served by community hospitals like St. Vincent’s, which closed in April 2010 after 161 years of operation. The new units can charge the same fees as full-service medical centers while running on lower overhead and funneling patients to their parent hospitals.

A similar arrangement is in the works at Brooklyn’s Long Island College Hospital, which owner SUNY Downstate Medical Center has sought to close. Under a deal signed earlier this month, most of the hospital’s property will be sold for private development, but its E.R. will continue to operate under management by NYU Langone Medical Center.