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First Black-Owned And Operated Urgent Care Facility Opens On Chicago’s South Side

Premier Health Urgent Care is offering wellness to a community in dire need of assistance.

A group of African American doctors realized the dire need for more health care options in one community in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago’s South Side and decided to do something about it.  

Opening in summer 2019, Premier Health Urgent Care is the only urgent care facility of its kind in the country that is open for business, ABC 7 Chicago reports. Co-founder and U.S. Navy veteran Dr. Reuben Rutland said that the group of doctors wanted to bring quality and affordable healthcare to a community that really needed it. “You have the choice of waiting eight hours in the emergency department for something minor, or coming to an urgent care and waiting 10 or 15 minutes and getting it done," Dr. Rutland explains.

The office is opened near 47th and Lake Park Avenue where one of the partners is former Chicago Bears wide receiver, Dr. Gregory Primus, who is also the first Black person trained in orthopedic surgery at the University of Chicago. 

"In the inner city, the community - some people would even say in the 'hood' - urgent care, primary care centers don't exist, so I felt like that has to be a part of what we are doing here," Dr. Primus said.

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Co-founder of the urgent care facility, Dr. Airron Richardson, says that South Side residents do not have the luxury of having urgent care nearby which forces them to go to different neighborhoods that are often several miles away. 

The center’s CEO, Dr. Michael McGee, told ABC 7 Chicago that there is a plan to give further back to the community through a youth organization which will then give a percentage of its revenue to local programs helping prevent violence.

Premier Health Urgent Care is open Monday-Friday 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. For more information, visit the facility's website here.

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