Photo by Susan M. Galardi
DAN'S PAPERS, April 18, 2008 Page 23 www.danshamptons.com
Run, Don’t Walk A New E.H. Urgent Care Facility to Treat Bites, Bumps, Bruises By Katy Gurley If you fall off your bike and break an arm this summer, you won’t have to call 911 and travel to the emergency room at Southampton Hospital, thanks to a new urgent care facility coming to East Hampton on June 15. In fact, at the new center, you can be treated, x-rayed and given a digital copy of your xrays on a disk to give to your own doctor when he or she is available — one of the many services that will be available at this new, and long over due, facility. The East Hampton Urgent Medical Care Center will open on Pantigo Road (also known as the Montauk Highway), east of
Skimhampton Road in the building that used to house the Sports Rehab Network (across the street from Cook, Hall & Hyde insurance company). The center will be open seven days a week, though hours have yet to be determined. The idea for the urgent care center came about as a result of a major health needs assessment study by the healthcare foundation ten years ago. “What we found is that when people need a doctor, they need one right away,” said Henry Murray, chairman of the board of trustees for the health foundation. “The new center represents a real partnership between Southampton Hospital and the
East Hampton Healthcare Foundation, both non-for-profit organizations,” said Fredric Weinbaum, M.D., chief medical officer and chief operating officer of the hospital. The $1 million facility is being funded through private donations to the healthcare foundation. “Private philanthropic money will come from generous donors in the East Hampton community,” said Murray. A third partner in the enterprise is 24/7 Emergency Care, P.C., a group of six doctors that serves Southampton Hospital’s emergency department. Those doctors will also take turns at the new urgent care center, which will be electronically con(continued on the next page)
CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? CELLBOATS GET THE CALL By David Lion Rattiner East Hampton is known for not letting big business stomp its way into town. It’s no accident that McDonald’s and KFC don’t have restaurants there. But when it comes to things like cell phone communication, a real Catch-22 arises. On one hand, the board and the residents don’t want to have cell phone towers popping up all over the place, disrupting the natural scenery. On the other hand, having the amount of dropped calls throughout the Town, specifically in Montauk and Springs, can make a person crazy. A new solution to this problem has been
offered to the board, and it’s surprising that they have never thought of it before. With all of the controversy over where to put a cell phone tower so that we can all have better reception, you’d think that the idea of putting it in the mast of a sailboat would’ve come up a long time ago. Cell phone towers on sailboats, or cellboats, as we at Dan’s Papers like to call them, are now being considered, and it has raised the eyebrows of just about every board member in East Hampton Town as well as interested residents. In the past, the general consensus about cell phone towers was that nobody wanted them in
their backyards. In other communities cell phone companies would come in a build their towers with little resistance. But in a place in East Hampton, where the land value and economy are joined at the hip with natural beauty, an effort to curb the towers from popping up in unwanted places began. Companies tried to cooperate, offering to hide towers in fake trees, but environmentalists would have none of it. They didn’t want the unsightly towers anywhere in sight and the fake trees looked ridiculous. But people don’t just want their cell phones these days, they need them. So what (continued on page 32)