Rally planned to save closing AHN primary care office in New Kensington

Closing an Allegheny Health Network primary care office in downtown New Kensington would have a detrimental impact on its more than 3,000 clients and its dozen employees, said Mark Kerr, a member of Teamsters Local 30.

“They cannot get to Natrona Heights or Cheswick, where they’re going to send them,” Kerr said. “A lot of them come from nearby high-rises. A lot of them walk.”

That’s part of the reason why the Teamsters is planning a rally to save the clinic Oct. 8 at the United Physicians facility, 305 Seventh St.

AHN announced this month that United Physicians will close by the end of the year.

William Toland, an AHN spokesman, said the office has only one physician, and that person is leaving the organization.

“As a result, that primary care office will close,” he said.

But Kerr, who helped facilitate a union vote at United Physicians, isn’t buying that reason.

He accused AHN of trying to union bust. He claimed that, before AHN announced it was closing the office, seven of the 12 employees voted to join Local 30.

“There’s really no reason to close the office, other than they don’t want to have a unionized workforce,” Kerr said. “Hospitals across the country are unionizing because they’re underpaid, understaffed and tired of it.”

Toland said the physician who leads the practice notified AHN they were leaving before the unionization vote occurred.

“That vote was not the reason that AHN decided to close the office,” Toland said.

He said AHN will be communicating with the practice’s patients directly in the coming weeks, “so they have enough notice to find a new, nearby provider.”

Kerr said many of the patients don’t have the means to go elsewhere for health care, and, in turn, they just won’t see doctors when they are sick.

He said the goal of the rally is to raise awareness of how important the facility is to New Kensington and to prevent it from closing.

“They’re turning their back on 3,000-plus patients because 12 ladies wanted a better workplace,” Kerr said. “It’s nothing to do with the doctor leaving. Ultimately, we don’t want the office to close.”