South Nassau officials discuss future of health care services

Dr. Joshua Kugler, South Nassau’s director of emergency services and the chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine, at Monday’s meeting.

Matthew Ern/ Herald

Joe Calderone, South Nassau’s senior vice president of communications.

Matthew Ern/Herald

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Representatives of South Nassau Communities Hospital were the guest speakers at the May 18 meeting of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce at the Allegria Hotel. They updated a plan to construct a free-standing emergency department in Long Beach by July 1, and answered questions about the hospital’s long-term commitment to restoring health care services to the barrier island.

Members of the Beach to Bay Civic Association criticized SNCH for not committing to Long Beach the entire $154 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds it has been promised to restore service to the barrier island. They cited the Berger Report — a 2006 report used as the basis to restructure hospitals across the state — in their call to restore a full-service hospital to Long Beach, as opposed to the emergency department and Medical Arts Pavilion that SNCH has proposed.

South Nassau took control of the former Long Beach Medical Center last year, after a federal bankruptcy court judge approved its sale to SNCH for $11.7 million. LBMC has been shuttered since Hurricane Sandy. South Nassau has committed roughly $40 million of its FEMA funding to building new facilities in Long Beach, and would use the rest to upgrade its main campus in Oceanside, part of what hospital officials described as a shift to regional health care delivery systems.

“The standard in Long Beach has to be the same as it is in Oceanside. No questions,” said Dr. Joshua Kugler, South Nassau’s director of emergency services and the chairman of its Department of Emergency Medicine. He said that the emergency department would be completed by July 1 and be a 911-receiving, 24/7 facility. It will contain $7 million in upgrades, including 600 square feet of additional space for a three-person observation unit, and will serve the entire barrier island, from Atlantic Beach to Point Lookout, Kugler said.

South Nassau has also deployed ambulances in Long Beach to be used in “mutual aid” backup situations to support the city’s new paramedics and Fire Department. Kugler said that SNCH ambulances would be used only as a last resort, when all other Long Beach vehicles were out on calls.