AHN, UPMC change dates for closing, opening New Kensington facilities

Allegheny Health Network and UPMC have each updated plans for their facilities in New Kensington.

AHN is delaying closing its outpatient center in the former Citizens General Hospital, spokeswoman JoAnne Clobus said Friday.

The center, offering laboratory, medical imaging and cardiology services, was originally slated to close on May 11. Clobus said AHN has extended its lease for six months, which will push the closing date into November. The exact date is not yet known.

“It gives us time to come up with a way to make a seamless transition for patients,” she said. “It gives us a lot more time to find another option.”

Clobus stressed that while AHN is leaving the former hospital, it is not abandoning the community.

“They are searching very aggressively for another location,” she said.

Meanwhile, UPMC is postponing opening festivities for the new St. Margaret Family Health Center on Fifth Avenue, which had previously been set for May 7.

Delaying the event has to do with presenters’ schedules, spokeswoman Stephanie Stanley said.

“It’s such an important services opening for our communities that even more of our UPMC leaders want to be present for this,” she said.

While the event has been delayed, the center will begin seeing patients on May 3, Stanley said.

UPMC broke ground on the $4.6 million, 8,000-square-foot facility last June.

It will offer primary care, obstetrics, pediatrics, opioid use disorder intervention, psychiatry, social work and behavioral health support.