In-house dialysis clinic planned for downtown nursing home
Downtown Buffalo could get its second dialysis center at an existing health care center.
The Ellicott Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing, formerly known as Waterfront Health Care Center, is working with a Bronx company to open a 16-unit chronic renal dialysis clinic inside the Seventh Street facility. The $4.4 million project also would add a training program for in-home hemodialysis.
According to plans filed with the state Department of Health, Bronx Center for Renal Dialysis LLC will establish the site as an extension clinic. A spokesman for the company said via email the project is still in its early stages.
“At the same time, we are confident that this will come to fruition and will be great for the people of Ellicott Center and the city of Buffalo,” he said.
If approved, the new center would more than double access to dialysis in the downtown area: Buffalo Dialysis, a 13-station clinic, opened on Ellicott Street near Tupper in 2017 as a subsidiary of DaVita Inc., one of the nation’s largest dialysis companies.
Ellicott Center has a long history in Buffalo: The 160-bed residential health care facility was previously owned by Kaleida Health, but was sold in 2011 and transitioned from nonprofit to private ownership. The facility includes three long-term care units and a sub-acute rehab unit. In 2014, the company added a home health care services division to serve Erie and Niagara counties.
Bronx Center for Renal Dialysis is owned by Kenneth Rozenberg, who also has ownership interests in Centers Health Care, another Bronx company that owns Ellicott Center. Centers Health Care operates health care businesses in New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Centers Health Care’s facility in the Bronx on Underhill Road also has an on-site dialysis center with 20 stations for its patients with kidney disease.
As seen on Buffalo Business First.
