SUNBURY, Pa. — Crews spent the morning putting up the sign outside the new Geisinger Convenient care clinic in Sunbury. Geisinger is relocating some doctors' offices here next week, and later this summer, it will open an urgent care clinic.
"All the things that may be in a hospital now we can do right here, and sometimes more quickly and right where they need to be seen, so this facility is going to fill this need here," Dr. Brian Timms said.
UPMC Susquehanna Sunbury closed last March, leaving the city without a hospital for the first time in nearly 125 years.
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Dr. Timms says the new convenient-care clinic will fill a need.
"People want to get care where they are. They don't want to have to go places, so if something closes, people can feel that there's a gap."
People will be able to have x-rays and laboratory services done at the new clinic.
People we spoke with tell Newswatch 16 they're happy the urgent care facility will be so close to where they live.
"It's needed," said Joe Bartello of Sunbury. "We need something close by. Right now, we have to run to Shamokin or to Lewisburg, which is at least another 15 minutes."
Rachael Williams lives in Sunbury and misses having a hospital close by.
"I think them putting in this new thing in town is a really good idea," Williams said. "It's hard because if I or my daughter or somebody have to go to the hospital, we have to go farther. If I don't have the gas to go to Danville or Lewisburg, I can't really get there."
The doctors' offices open Tuesday, and the convenient-care clinic will open later this summer in the North 4th Street Plaza in Sunbury.