Northern Light will close Southwest Harbor clinic

Northern Light Health will be closing its clinic in Southwest Harbor.

The Herrick Road clinic’s primary care services will be merged with another primary care office on Resort Way in Ellsworth, according to the Mount Desert Islander .

Those two primary care officers are just over 19 miles away from each other.

The clinic’s nine employees will be offered work elsewhere within the Northern Light Health system, while its 1,600 patients will be informed of the closure in the coming days, the Islander reported.

Joe Gaetano, the vice president of operations for Northern Light’s Blue Hill and Ellsworth hospitals, told the Islander in a statement that closing the clinic “made the most sense” because of continued “staffing challenges” and the “high cost” of maintenance and improvements there.

Northern Light will likely sell the property eventually, according to the newspaper.