Middlesex Hospital’s new Shoreline Medical Center in Westbrook is on schedule to open in April
Middlesex Hospital is on track to open a new emergency and outpatient medical center off Exit 65 of I-95 in Westbrook this coming April. The new 44,000 square foot medical center is located at 250 Flat Rock Road, which is on the road that leads up to the Tanger Outlet Mall.
As soon as the new Westbrook Medical Center is completed, Middlesex Hospital will make the transition from its existing Shoreline Medical Center in Essex. The new Westbrook location will be double the size of the Essex facility. In addition, it will have the capacity to expand up to 60,000 square feet, if there is a need to do so.
Middlesex Hospital’s new Westbrook facility will have many improvements over the present Essex facility. These include an expanded emergency center with 24 beds, as well as an urgent care area for non-emergency patients. Patient privacy will be also be improved at the new center and there will be a separate outside entrance to the adjoining outpatient area.
In addition, the new facility will have a full service laboratory, an infusion therapy suite, expanded radiology services and a designated women’s imaging area.
Chester Company Donates $1 Million to New Center
Whelen Engineering, Inc., which is headquartered in Chester, is donating $1 million towards the building of the new Middlesex Hospital Shoreline Medical Center in Westbrook. The new Emergency Department in Westbrook will be aptly named the “Whelen Emergency Center.”
Whelen Engineering previously donated $1 million towards to the construction of a new Emergency Department in Middletown, which the hospital named the “Whelen Emergency Pavilion.”
Middlesex Hospital’s History of Medical Care on the Shoreline
Middlesex Hospital has a history, beginning in 1970, of providing medical care to the shoreline residents of Middlesex County. The hospital first rented a space in Centerbrook, where it set up a full-service, satellite Emergency Department.
From its first day of operation, this Shoreline Medical Center in Centerbrook experienced phenomenal growth. In fact, it soon became impossible for the medical center to remain at its Centerbrook location and properly serve an overrun of patients for the size of the facility.
Two Essex residents, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred P. Knapp, came to the rescue by donating to Middlesex Hospital 10.4 acres of land on which to build a new, permanent Shoreline Medical Center in Essex. Today, the facility serves on average 2,000 to 2,500 patients a month in its Emergency Department alone. In addition, the Medical Center’s Emergency Department has received a number of prestigious awards for its excellence in patient satisfaction.
The Shoreline Medical Clinic in Essex will close this coming April when the Westbrook Medical Center opens.
Middlesex Hospital to date has not announced its plans for the building in Essex, once it has been closed and replaced by the new Westbrook facility.
About the author: Nicole Prévost Logan divides her time between Essex and Paris, spending summers in the former and winters in the latter. She will write a regular column for us from her Paris home where her topics will include politics, economy, social unrest — mostly in France — but also in other European countries. She also will cover a variety of art exhibits and the performing arts in Europe. Logan is the author of ‘Forever on the Road: A Franco-American Family’s Thirty Years in the Foreign Service,’ an autobiography of her life as the wife of an overseas diplomat, who lived in 10 foreign countries on three continents. Her experiences during her foreign service life included being in Lebanon when civil war erupted, excavating a medieval city in Moscow and spending a week under house arrest in Guinea.
