{"id":38118,"date":"2022-09-30T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/centura-health-closes-urgent-care-center-at-purgatory-resort\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:42:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:42:33","slug":"centura-health-closes-urgent-care-center-at-purgatory-resort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/centura-health-closes-urgent-care-center-at-purgatory-resort\/","title":{"rendered":"Centura Health closes urgent care center at Purgatory Resort"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The slopes of Purgatory Resort reflect in the window of Mercy Hospital\u2019s urgent care center. Centura Health will no longer operate the urgent care center at Purgatory Resort. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Centura Health will no longer operate an urgent care center at Purgatory Resort, according to the resort\u2019s general manager.<\/p>\n

David Rathbun declined to discuss details about the closure, but he said Purgatory will maintain a similar level of emergent care even without the urgent care.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we are disappointed to lose such a strong and stable partner in Centura Mercy as the clinic and urgent care provider for North La Plata County, we will continue to maintain a similar level of emergent care for resort guests through our professional ski patrol team, Durango Fire Protection District\u2019s Station 15 located 10 minutes from the resort base, and critical care air ambulance coverage provided by Centura\u2019s Flight For Life Lifeguard 5 helicopter serving the Emergency Department at Mercy Medical Center in Durango,\u201d said Rathbun, the resort\u2019s general manager, in an email to The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Centura Health did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\"The
The urgent care center at Purgatory Resort sits closed Thursday. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A sign on the door of Mercy Hospital\u2019s Urgent Care at Purgatory Resort on Thursday says the facility is closed for the summer, but a ski resort official and EMS chief with Durango Fire Protection District say the clinic, operated by Centura Health, is closing permanently. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mercy Urgent Care was staffed by nurse practitioners and emergency room nurses, with the support of emergency physicians at Mercy Hospital, according to Purgatory\u2019s website<\/a>. It offered digital X-rays and limited laboratory services.<\/p>\n

Rathbun declined to release data about how often the clinic gets used and for what types of injuries or medical emergencies.<\/p>\n

Scott Sholes, EMS chief at Durango Fire Protection District, said the clinic\u2019s closure could put a strain on EMS crews. DFPD has already begun discussing how to prepare for an influx of calls this winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very disappointed with this decision,\u201d Sholes said. \u201cIt looks like there\u2019s no plan to reopen, which certainly has the potential effect of increasing ambulance call volumes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Purgatory is about as far north as Durango EMS services go, so it takes units out of service for longer periods of time, Sholes said. Basic EMS crews also don\u2019t have training in returning dislocated bones to their normal position, and transporting patients long distances with dislocated joints can add to the level of pain people experience, he said.<\/p>\n

The urgent care center at Mercy also treated residents from Silverton, which prevented them from having to travel all the way into Durango for certain services, Sholes said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a loss of care I don\u2019t think anyone has considered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"The
The urgent care at Purgatory Resort sits closed Thursday. Centura Health will no longer operate the urgent care at Purgatory Resort, according to the resort and Durango Fire Protection District. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

On a positive note, Centura Health\u2019s departure from Purgatory Resort gives EMS crews more flexibility in deciding where to take patients once they are transported off the mountain and into Durango, Sholes said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now able to take orthopedic patients to Animas Surgical Hospital, which is way closer, instead of all the way over to Mercy Hospital because there will be no more provider-to-provider transfer,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that\u2019s something.\u201d<\/p>\n

molsen@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durango EMS crews anticipate increased call volume this winter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,61,2666,1531,68,712],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-health-treatment","tag-injury","tag-mercy-regional-medical-center","tag-purgatory"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83925,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38118\/revisions\/83925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38118"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}