Sunday, January 19, 2025
Mount Sinai South Nassau opened an ambulatory medical facility in Long Beach in June 2023 on the grounds of the old Long Beach Hospital on East Bay Drive, expanding its reach on the barrier island. The hospital widened its presence on Tuesday, celebrating the opening of a walk-in primary care center on the boardwalk.
The staff of the no-appointment-needed, full-service facility (which also accepts appointments) began seeing patients on Nov. 4, but marked its full opening this week.
City officials joined Mount Sinai executives including its president, Adhi Sharma; Alan Wong, senior vice president and chief medical officer; and Physician Director Haran Ratna for the ribbon-cutting, along with representatives of B2K Development, the company that built the new condominium and apartment towers on the Superblock, between Riverside and Long Beach boulevards. The center, at 106 Boardwalk, is nearest to the apartment building known as the Breeze.
“We’ve been committed to the Long Beach community ever since the hospital has been in place,” Sharma said, “but certainly since Superstorm Sandy, we took on more of an obligation to make sure that health care was restored to the barrier island. We worked collectively with our Long Beach elected officials and the City Council to make sure that we could do this in an effective manner. This site is just a furtherance of that commitment.”
The center offers preventive and diagnostic services, including physicals, acute care for injuries and illness, management of chronic disease, and vaccinations and immunizations.
“We do more acute things, like upper-respiratory infections, UTIs, things of that nature,” Ratna said. “We also do the maintenance appointments, like going over your blood work, cancer screenings and vaccinations, management of chronic diseases, hypertension, diabetes, and follow-ups.”
Sharma and Ratna emphasized that while the facility it is a walk-in clinic, it is not urgent care.
Over the summer, the hospital’s community education department began offering health lectures, assessments and preventive services at the new location, including screenings for blood pressure, body mass index, blood oxygen, memory loss and diabetes risk. It also hosted seminars on health education for more than 500 people. Those services will continue next summer.
MSSN has been doing community service on the boardwalk for a decade, putting up tents and doing free blood pressure screenings. When the new buildings on the Superblock were under construction, B2K contacted the hospital to see if it was interested in opening a permanent health care facility on the boardwalk.
“Mount Sinai South Nassau is committed to identifying and advancing opportunities to provide health care services and programs that the community needs and deserves,” Anthony Cancellieri, chair of MSSN’s Advisory Board, said. “This practice is part of our ongoing effort to fulfill that commitment.”
The hospital signed a three-part lease with B2K eight months ago — one 10-year and two five-year leases. Since the facility is close to the ocean, the potential for flooding had to be taken into account. But Jon Weiss, a principal at B2K, said the center is above the elevation of 17 to 21 feet above sea level that the Federal Emergency Management Agency considers safe from flooding, so it should not be an issue.
The roughly 2,600-square-foot facility has four exam rooms. It will be open in the winter from Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The schedule may expand next spring and summer. The total project cost, including construction and medical equipment, was around $600,000.
City Council President Brendan Finn presented the hospital with a citation on behalf of the city, in recognation of MSSN’s efforts to offer more health care to area residents.
“We are pleased Mount Sinai South Nassau is increasing barrier-island health care services at a location so convenient to both our residents and visitors alike,” City Manager Daniel Creighton said. “The location lends itself to facilitating further collaboration between Mount Sinai and our lifeguards and other first responders, and should prove to be a valuable resource for them. Mount Sinai’s continued investment in the health of our residents is greatly appreciated.”
