WATERVILLE — The Northern Light Walk-In Care clinic will remain open, even after the rest of the hospital closes.

The clinic, at 174 Kennedy Memorial Drive, is next to Northern Light Inland Hospital, which will end clinical and emergency department services May 27 and shut its doors for good June 11. The walk-in clinic was identified as a priority for the community and will be preserved under the administration of Portland’s Northern Light Mercy Hospital.

A May 16 social media post announced the clinic would stay open, receiving more than a thousand supportive responses online.

The news comes amid a recent push by Northern Light Health to collaborate with local hospitals to preserve services in central Maine, including the clinic in Waterville and primary care practices in Unity and Madison. While Inland’s closure leaves thousands without primary care or emergency options in the Waterville area, the collaboration between hospitals reflects a regionwide commitment to improve healthcare access for residents.

The walk-in clinic is valuable because patients do not need an appointment to receive care, said Kathy Jason, lead communication specialist for Inland Hospital.

“We have four primary care locations, and the walk-in care was another option for patients and also for any community member, because you don’t have to be a member,” Jason said. “Anyone can go to the walk-in care. So it’s a huge service for the community, especially if it’s not an emergency but it’s something that needs to be addressed — they can just walk in. And that was a big piece for us to be able to save that service in the community.”

The clinic offers walk-in care from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week, for nonurgent illnesses and injuries including cold symptoms, fevers and minor cuts, and for vaccinations.

Northern Light announced the closure of its Waterville operations and associated clinics in mid-March, citing ongoing recruitment and retention challenges, higher operating costs and low reimbursement rates for the services it provides. The closure does not mean Northern Light’s footprint will end in the region, Marie Vienneau, senior vice president of Northern Light Health and regional president of Northern Light CA Dean, Inland, Sebasticook Valley and Mayo hospitals, said.

“Though it’s unfortunate that we had to close the hospital, we looked to keep as many things open as we could in the region, because this was certainly not an intent to depart from caring for the Waterville community, which Northern Light Health has done for many years,” Vienneau said. “So we looked at the things that we could transition to other providers, because once the hospital closes and you no longer have a license, you can’t operate clinics and those sorts of things freestanding.”

Preserving the clinic

After collecting feedback from state representatives, community members and local EMS providers, Northern Light Health identified the Waterville walk-in clinic as a valuable asset to the community. Work to preserve it began immediately, Vienneau said.

“We started working on that from the first day that we announced the closure, and we were very fortunate to find our partner, Mercy Hospital, within the Northern Light Health system that was agreeable to come on board and help us with that project,” Vienneau said. “So we are very happy to have them here, and very glad that that’s going to allow the walk-in care to stay open. We’ve gotten a lot of community feedback, via social media and other means, that it seems to be very well-received that the walk-in care is going to remain.”

There are 30 employees working at the clinic, including clinical staff, providers and patient registration and radiology tech. After the May 16 announcement on social media, many community members gave digital kudos to the staff for providing quality care.

The clinic will become part of Northern Light Mercy Hospital this weekend, said Alicia Paquette, director of emergency department and walk-in care at Mercy.

“Starting this Sunday, the clinic will convert over to a Mercy entity, walk-in care,” Paquette said. “It’s all the same staff, the staff are staying in place. They’ve done credentialing and onboarding with Mercy, and they still have their same leadership in place. So it should be pretty seamless to them.”

The collaboration with Mercy Hospital was sparked out of concern that central Maine residents would not be able to secure alternate healthcare, Paquette said.

“There’s not a lot of options out there for them in that area, so it’s important that we are able to provide that service,” Paquette said. “I have heard that MaineGeneral has had an increase influx, so we want to make sure that we’re caring for those patients in their community and not having to travel elsewhere.”

Regional collaboration

Other Northern Light practices in the region will also move to new providers. A rural health clinic in Unity will move into Sebasticook Valley Hospital, adding two additional providers and several specialists, and a rural health clinic in Madison will merge into Redington-Fairview General Hospital with an additional pediatrician. The collaboration with Redington-Fairview became official Thursday, Vienneau said.

“We want to take care of as many people in Waterville as we can, and that’s why we’ve transitioned many providers to our Sebasticook Valley clinic,” Vienneau said. “We have also transitioned several of the specialists to our Sebasticook Valley clinic, so we hope to remain an active healthcare provider for the people of Waterville and to support the community in any way that we can in the future.”

The Northern Light Home Care and Hospice office at 325-D Kennedy Memorial Drive will also continue to serve patients in the region, alongside a pediatric specialty clinic that comes down from Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center.

Only one service will remain open under Inland after June 11. Northern Light Continuing Care in Lakewood is independent of the hospital’s closure and will stay open until Inland Hospital transitions to a joint venture partnership with First Atlantic Health Care, Vienneau said.

For now, the future of Inland’s facility on Kennedy Memorial Drive is up in the air. Vienneau said conversations with developers are in the works.

“We do have some conversations ongoing with potential developers that we are not ready to reveal now, but we are hopeful that one will come forward that will have a viable option for the building, because we absolutely hope that the building is repurposed and utilized for other benefits to the community,” Vienneau said. “So we are actively seeking those investors and working with them to hopefully come up with a plan for that in the coming months.”