Baystate Health Moves Forward with Primary and Convenient Care Plans in Ware

Springfield, MASS.  -- Baystate Health is moving forward with its development plans to expand care in Ware by establishing a new primary care and convenient care (convenient care is an extension of primary care that serves most urgent care needs) clinic in the community. This investment advances our mission to deliver compassionate, quality and accessible care – advancing our communities’ health for all.

These plans – shared over the past year with the community leader working group that Baystate Health has been partnering with – are moving ahead after the Hampshire Probate Court recently approved a petition to modify the Gilbert Trust. This allows Baystate to be the beneficiary of the Trust to support the convenient care component of the plan, called the Baystate Mary Lane Convenient Care - Ware. The approved modifications make the Trust’s original charitable intent more contemporary – to maintain a health care facility in Ware and to provide health care services to people in Ware and Gilbertville. The facility’s name honors Lewis Gilbert’s wish for any facility the funds support to bear his late wife’s name, preserving the Gilbert family’s legacy and longstanding connection to the community.

Baystate leadership is working with our local partners to identify sites and begin development. We are committed to transparency and will provide community updates throughout the process. Our renewed commitment to primary and convenient care involves a significant ongoing annual operating loss (i.e. several hundred thousand dollars per year after taking into account Trust support) and demonstrates our sustained commitment to invest in local economic and health care development. The continued and consistent support of the Gilbert Trust to Baystate makes this commitment in Ware a reality, making the services sustainable for generations to come.

Baystate Health engaged Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C. to produce an independent accountant’s report related to the Gilbert Trust and other trusts in question related to Baystate Mary Lane Hospital. They applied agreed-upon procedures relating to the existence, valuation and rights and obligations of the Gilbert Trust and other trusts generating a summary of procedures and findings in October 2025. This is a matter of the public record in the Town of Ware.

Baystate Health is also actively working within our academic medical group on expanding our successful Family Medicine Residency Program from Baystate Franklin to Baystate Wing. This expansion is crucial as we must train and develop our own community-focused physicians and providers to provide longitudinal care across all ages and health conditions close to home. As part of this expansion, Baystate applied to the state in October 2025 for Rural Health Transformation Fund (RHTP) support for a family medicine clinic on the Baystate Mary Lane Hospital campus and we continue to be in discussions with the Commonwealth regarding anticipated uses for the RHTP.