Kudos to The Signal for being the only news outlet to cover the pending closing of Willow Urgent Care (located at Willow and Temple). As one who has used their services almost from the time they opened their doors and found their location to be fairly convenient, I found your article to be somewhat disconcerting.
I went to Willow Urgent Care to ascertain who/what they could recommend for a replacement and to attempt to find out why they were closing. Nobody would tell me anything; all the remaining staff would do was give me a sheet of paper listing the locations of six other urgent-care facilities. One was on Ocean Boulevard in downtown Long Beach (which I consider to be absolutely inconvenient), and the other five were scattered around Orange County (even more inconvenient). It was obvious to me that they had been instructed to give that sheet of paper as their only response and to not discuss the underlying cause(s) for closing whatsoever.
With minimal effort on my part, I found that Health Care Partners has an urgent-care facility at Willow and Redondo (a mere one traffic signal east of Willow Urgent Care) and that Memorial Care has one at Bellflower and Stearns. Both are available to the general public, and both told me they accept most insurance plans. I made sure that they accepted my Medicare and my supplemental coverage; both indicated that they did.
I am in no way recommending the services of either of these facilities since I have not actually used either one yet; my point is that both of these locations are far more convenient than anywhere Willow Urgent Care is willing to tell its (former) patients about. There yet may be others scattered around town of which I am not yet aware.
I have a “gut feeling” that there is something more that isn’t being revealed as to the reasons that Willow Urgent Care is being closed. It certainly isn’t for lack of patronage; the place was always packed.
John Deats
Long Beach
