Greenwood Leflore Hospital will be closing its Pain Management Center after the physician who ran it decided to not renew his contract.
The outpatient clinic, which treats those suffering from chronic pain, will close July 8, according to a letter mailed May 10 to its patients by Dr. Ahmed Abdel-Aziz.
Aziz, who has worked for the Greenwood hospital for almost 18 years, is moving to another state.
The rest of the clinic’s employees, according to spokeswoman Christine Hemphill, are among the 30 that the hospital announced last week it was laying off as a way to stem the bleeding of its cash reserves. The hospital declined to specify how many employees work at the pain clinic.
The pending closure of the clinic was first reported by The Taxpayers Channel.
It reported that Aziz notified the hospital in April that he would not be renewing his contract. Since that time, according to the physician’s letter, the hospital has been unable to line up a replacement provider.
His letter included a list of 13 pain clinics within a two hours’ drive to which patients could transfer their care. The closest is located in Greenville.
“The loss of the pain clinic in Greenwood will cause distress for those patients who have chronic, and sometimes excruciating pain, that can only be controlled with steroid injections or drugs such as opioids,” The Taxpayers Channel said. “Because of the recent growing concerns about narcotics addiction and abuse, the GLH pain clinic was often the only provider of such essential treatments, since most physicians have stopped prescribing highly addictive medications, and instead refer their patients with intractable pain to the pain clinic.”
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
