On Monday night, the Clergy Community Coalition held a town hall meeting in West Dayton with Premier Health CEO Michael Riordan.
The meeting gave community members a chance to share their concerns about Premier’s plans for the site where Good Samaritan Hospital once stood.
The new development, which was approved by the Dayton planning board last week, is designed to house some Premier Health Services, like an urgent care and doctors offices.
It will also include several nonprofits, such as a new YMCA.
But the plan isn’t popular with some West Dayton residents, like Rebecca Holbrook. She says they’ve been desperate for a maternity ward and 24 hour emergency room since Good Samaritan shut down in 2018.
“These people need medical care,” Holbrook says. “We need our babies to be born healthy. And we don’t need clinics that close at 5 o’clock, and then we’ve got to go way downtown to Miami Valley Hospital.”
Premier CEO Michael Riordan said he hears the community’s concerns, but he believes the only way to get an ER or a larger facility back in West Dayton is to start with the urgent care Premier has planned.
The clergy who hosted the meeting have drawn up a petition in hopes the city will stop progress on the development until Premier is ready to offer more.
They point to the facilities Premier has built in suburban, mostly white communities since Premier shut down Good Samaritan in their Black community.
