After-hours treatment center for kids just what the doctor ordered

July 13, 2012

Dr. Peter Yasigian and pediatric assistant Marissa Pierson are happy to be opening Just Kids RI Sick Care, which is located at 2 Meehan Lane in Cumberland, on July 17. Photo/Ernest A. Brown

CUMBERLAND – You don’t have to be a parent to know that children don’t get sick during business hours. And if they happen to, it isn’t until today’s busy parents come home from work that they invariably find out about it and start looking for medical attention.
And so Dr. Peter Yasigian was often needed in the office until seven or eight o’clock at night, tending to the usual afflictions of his pediatric caseload, from sore throats and sprains to coughs and croup.
There had to be a better way.
It’s called Just Kids RI Sick Care, a one-of-a-kind, after-hours treatment center that is, well, just for kids.
After 27 years in business, Yasigian’s invention is not a departure from his longtime pediatric practice at 2 Meehan Lane, but an expansion designed mainly for the convenience of families with children.
When kids get sick at night, on holidays or weekends, says Yasigian, their parents have relatively few options for obtaining non-emergency treatment. Normally, their regular pediatricians aren’t available at those times, so they’re forced to seek treatment at emergency rooms or urgent care centers, where wait times are typically long and treatment is comparatively expensive.

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