Group wants South Nassau to keep FEMA money in Long Beach

Beach to Bay says SNCH must earmark funds for full-service hospital

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Residents called on South Nassau Communities Hospital again last week to use nearly $180 million in federal funding to establish emergency medical and health care services in the city, after they received a recent mailing saying that the funds would be used at both the Hurricane Sandy-shuttered Long Beach Medical Center campus and “elsewhere.”

LBMC has remained closed since Sandy, and residents maintain that the lack of a hospital on the barrier island continues to put lives at risk.

“The blueprint must be for a hospital, and FEMA money has to build that hospital for us,” Barbara Bernardino, a co-founder of the Beach to Bay Central Council of Civic Associations, which has been calling for a full-service hospital on the barrier island, told the City Council at last week’s meeting.

South Nassau finalized its $11.8 million acquisition of LBMC last month, and reached an agreement with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on $176.9 million in Sandy aid to SNCH to redevelop health care services in Long Beach and the surrounding communities.

FEMA may now approve a reimbursement for 90 percent of South Nassau’s investment of up to $176.9 million in new health care facilities, programs and services — including emergency services — in areas of high community need.

Members of Beach to Bay, however, are pressing South Nassau to use all of the funds in Long Beach. Phyllis Libutti, a member of Beach to Bay, asked City Council members — who spoke at a rally organized by the group at Kennedy Plaza last month — to continue to call on South Nassau to keep the FEMA money in the city and hold community forums.

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