By Cynthia Grau/WJEZ News

OSF Healthcare has been granted a waiver to allow ambulances to transport Streator-area patients to urgent care.

This waiver comes with the stipulation that an ambulance is stationed at the urgent care facility.

While generally not allowed, as ambulances can only go to emergency departments, the IDPH recognized this as a special circumstance leading up to OSF establishing an emergency center at OSF Center for Health – Streator.

Until the emergency center is approved and the IDPH issues a license, only ambulance patients requiring basic life support (BLS) will be accepted for treatment at urgent care, staffed 24/7 by board-certified emergency medicine physicians. Advanced Life Support (ALS) patients will need to be transported to an area emergency center.

For more information, visit www.osfhealthcare.org/streator.