RELATED: Smaller health centers adjust as Good Sam closes
Premier officials said the vast majority of the services that were housed at the 220-bed Good Samaritan Hospital on Salem Avenue are moving to the main Miami Valley Hospital just south of downtown Dayton. Mary Garman, chief operating officer of Good Samaritan North, said orthopedic and spine services from Good Sam will move north to Englewood, and the north facility will also add some general surgery services.
“We will be open as a full-service hospital 24/7,” said Mike Maiberger, who is both executive VP/COO of Premier Health and president of Miami Valley Hospital. “It won’t offer all of the same type of services on the same scale that Good Samaritan did. But it will offer services that are very much needed in this part of our service community. … We’ll see how the future goes. This is just the beginning.”
Good Samaritan Hospital on Salem Avenue closed its emergency room this week, and the facility will close for good after 86 years at 12:01 a.m. Monday morning. The changes will leave Premier Health with three hospitals in Montgomery County — the main Miami Valley, MVH North in Englewood and MVH South in Centerville. Kettering Health Network operates the expanding Grandview Medical Center in west Dayton, just behind the Dayton Art Institute.
RELATED: Grandview hospital expands emergency room services
A group called the Clergy Community Coalition has filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying the Good Sam closure will “have a discriminatory and separate adverse impact on African-Americans and women” in violation of the Civil Rights Act and under the Affordable Care Act.
The Dayton-area residents for whom Good Samaritan is the closest hospital are 75 percent African-American, according to the complaint. Some of the concerns include longer travel times to health services, the loss of the ER and the loss of the maternity unit and OB/GYN services.
It is about a five-mile, 12-minute drive from Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton to Good Sam in northwest Dayton, and also a five-mile, 12-minute drive from that near-shuttered Good Sam site to the renamed Miami Valley Hospital North.
RELATED: Employees from Good Sam said hospital “felt like home”
Garman said MVH North will be “very adequately prepared to care for the emergency situations,” but patients who require a longer length of stay and more comprehensive services will move to the main MVH campus.
“The community has asked us for a long time to consider putting inpatient beds out here,” Garman said. “Those patients who required inpatient care (after emergency service) had to be transferred to the main campus or another hospital. (The addition of inpatient beds) will allow patients who need to be hospitalized from this community to stay right here in this community.”
Those who have fought for Good Samaritan to stay open had the same desire, to be cared for in the community where they live. Asked about services leaving northwest Dayton, Maiberger pointed to the main Miami Valley Hospital.
RELATED: What to know about the Good Sam civil rights complaint
“Miami Valley main, in downtown Dayton, will continue its proud tradition of servicing the needs of the city of Dayton community,” Maiberger said. “This (North) facility, with our enhanced services and enhanced hours of operation, will only enhance the services and complement the services in this part of our market.”
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