Mount Sinai ‘ologists’ set to arrive in Long Beach soon

Mount Sinai South Nassau’s sparkling new ambulatory medical facility in Long Beach — on the grounds of the nearly century-old Long Beach Hospital, which was extensively damaged in Hurricane Sandy in 2012 — is scheduled to open later this month, and it facility already has a nickname: “the ologists.”

That’s because specialists in cardiology, gastroenterology and urology will staff the $35 million, 15,000-square-foot facility, which will be known officially as Mount Sinai Doctors-Long Beach. It will also offer pain management care, lab services and X-ray and ultrasound imaging.

Since the Long Beach Hospital was all but destroyed, the barrier island has been without a major medical facility, much to the displeasure of residents of Long Beach, Atlantic Beach, Lido Beach and Point Lookout. Mount Sinai opened an emergency center next to the ruins of the old hospital in 2015.

Mount Sinai South Nassau’s main campus is in Oceanside, a 340-bed facility staffed by over 900 physicians and 3,000 employees.

Mount Sinai spent more than $100 million of Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to build a new power plant and a four-story patient pavilion at the Oceanside campus.

Long Beach residents were clamoring for more on the barrier island, and the hospital has said that it heard them. “The people in Long Beach don’t like to cross a bridge,” the hospital’s president, Dr. Adhi Sharma, said during an exclusive tour of the new facility for the Herald last week. “Local care is important. If it’s important to them, it’s important to us.”

Residents of the barrier island have to cross a bridge to get to Mount Sinai’s main campus, or St. John’s Hospital in Far Rockaway.

Leah Tozer, co-chair of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, said that residents wanted more than an ambulatory center, but she added that such a facility is certainly a benefit for many.

“It’s here,” Tozer said. “We tried to fight it. The neighborhood wanted something different, but we didn’t get it.”

City Council Vice President Liz Treston said she visited the facility, “especially after some concerns by the surrounding neighbors.” She said she found that, with “new fencing and more cleanup (it) was complete.”

But, Treston added, “While I’m disappointed the barrier island does not have a freestanding hospital, especially when we just fought and won to have the standing ER remain up and running 24/7, I understand that the medical system in the United States is changing. The number of patients being admitted to hospitals is decreasing, because fewer patients require hospital beds with these newer outpatient services.”

Joe Calderone, a spokesman for the hospital, cited a study by Bruce Vladeck, who, during the administration of President Bill Clinton, headed the federal Health Care Financing Administration. The agency concluded that Long Beach did not generate the volume of patients needed to support a full-service hospital, and recommended the type of facility now about to open.

“It is highly unlikely the (state) Health Department would have ever approved a full-scale hospital,” Calderone said.

Mount Sinai Doctors, situated not far from Reynolds Channel, has an emergency landing zone that can accommodate a helicopter. Its walls are a light pastel, and its large front windows offer a view of the channel.

“We took advantage of the beachy-ness of the area,” Sharma said.

Mount Sinai said it spent more than $73 million on what it called a “health care revitalization plan for Long Beach,” including the emergency department and the new facility. There will be no overnight stays there, and the specialists will be available by appointment only.

Mount Sinai Doctors has 15 private patient examination rooms, four procedure rooms, an X-ray room and eight rooms for procedure preparation and recovery. It will create about 30 jobs, including front-desk support, medical assistants, X-ray and lab technicians as well as doctors.

Two of the five damaged Long Beach Hospital buildings remain standing. Hospital officials say they would like to convert them into some type of housing facility, perhaps for health care workers.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for June 20 for the facility, which took almost two years to build, according to James Smyth, its senior project manager.

Hospital officials point with some pride to a new electronic health-record system that will allow patients to access their records, schedule appointments, renew medications and receive information about the care they receive.

There are 35 Mount Sinai Doctors facilities on Long Island. One in Carle Place opened in January.

The hospital has invited members of the City Council, the chamber of commerce and the fire department in for tours.