SNCH to open emergency department in July

Will upgrade urgent-care center; planning public meeting

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A week after the Long Beach City Council and State Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky called for more details regarding South Nassau Communities Hospital’s plans for the Hurricane Sandy-shuttered Long Beach Medical Center, South Nassau announced Tuesday that it will establish a free-standing emergency department on the campus by July 1.

In a letter to the council that was forwarded to the Herald, SNCH’s Chief Executive Officer Richard Murphy said that plans are underway to upgrade the urgent-care center, which opened last year on the medical center property, into a free-standing emergency department that could accept ambulances.

Murphy said that the hospital intends to file for a certificate of need with the New York State Health Department next month and hopes to have the upgraded facility ready by July 1, at a cost of $4.5 million.

Earlier this month, South Nassau told the Herald that it was considering converting the urgent-care center into a free-standing emergency department, at least temporarily, until a more permanent facility were constructed, either at LBMC’s West Wing, which housed the emergency department, or elsewhere in Long Beach.

Three of the hospital’s oldest buildings were so badly damaged by Sandy that they are slated for demolition. Joe Calderone, a spokesman for South Nassau, told Newsday that while LBMC’s west and main parts of the building sustained less damage, it would cost “many more millions” to bring them up to standards for a free-standing emergency department.

The 4,700-square-foot urgent-care center, in the parking lot adjacent to the Komanoff Center for Geriatric & Rehabilitative Medicine, at 375 E. Bay Drive, opened last July, a modular unit funded by a $6.6 million state grant. The facility cannot accept ambulances, though patients who require emergency care or hospitalization can be transported to South Nassau or other hospitals via on-site ambulance services. South Nassau officials said they are looking at doubling the center’s size and converting it into a 24/7 emergency facility.

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