Retirement forces Austintown Health Center to close

An agreement has been reached in principle with Forum Health to take over patient care.

Staff Report

AUSTINTOWN — The Austintown Health Care Center has been accepting patients for more than 30 years but will shut its doors at the end of the week.

In a statement released Sunday night, Jim Conti, the center’s owner, said his retirement had caused the closing of the facility.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Conti said in the statement. “I’ve been in the health-care business for 30 years, and it’s time to retire.”

The health center’s emergency-room treatment will cease today at 6 p.m. The facility will continue to accept its occupational-therapy patients until 6 p.m. Friday.

An agreement has been reached in principle with Forum Health to transition patients into Forum’s facilities after those dates. Forum has an immediate-care facility across the street from the Austintown Health Care Center building on Canfield-Niles Road.

“I wanted to make sure our emergency-room and occupational- service patients continue to get great care, so we worked out an arrangement to transfer services to Forum,” Conti said in the statement.