A medical centre that has served patients young and old at Penshurst is closing its doors at its current site and is relocating.
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Ashby Medical Centre has sold its premises where it has treated the community for the past 80 years.
July 28 will be the last day the centre operates at its original site on Penshurst Street.
A residential developer purchased the old site at auction through Commercial Property Group Hurstville.
But there is good news for current patients.
The new medical centre with the same name will re-open on August 1 only a couple of doors up on the corner of Penshurst Street and Forest Road.
It will be out with the old and in with the new, as the outdated building makes way for a modern and more practical centre.
Contact numbers for the centre will remain the same.
With new consulting rooms and blood collection, the centre will have improved access for many of its elderly and loyal patients.
The centre was built by Dr Ashby in the 1930s. It retained its original ground floors waiting and consultation room and his residence upstairs.
Practice manager Lisa Kastrounis says the move is bitter sweet.
“It’s been a good 12 months in the planning, but we’ve grown to love our old building and we’re very fond of it,” she said.
“It’s quite an old building and just not functional anymore.
“It’s on two levels and we’re not able to get patients up and down stairs.
“Our practice has grown with about 10 doctors now, and we need to have mod-cons like a disabled entrance and toilets, and wider corridors for patients with walking frames and wheelchairs.”
Ms Kastrounis says the practice has many long-time patients.
About 40 per cent of them walk to the surgery.
“We had patients here that attended Dr Ashby – they would have been children at the time,” she said.
“We wanted to find something in close distance and the serendipity of the situation is that we found something next door, so our patients don’t have to travel far and it won’t be much of a strain for them.
“There will also be an on-site pharmacy, which will make it easier for our doctors to have a chat with pharmacists.”