Adams teases plan for additional Rockaway hospital
/
Mayor Eric Adams announced a program last week that would help establish additional medical facilities in Rockaway. Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
By Rachel Vick
During the early days of the pandemic, the Rockaway peninsula faced higher than average rates of COVID-19 – and it did so with just one hospital.
Last week, Mayor Eric Adams promised more support was on the way.
His newly announced plan, “Rebuild, Renew, Reinvent: A Blueprint for New York City’s Economic Recovery,” suggests investment “in improving long-term health outcomes in Downtown Far Rockaway.”
Part of the plan includes building a new hospital on the 11-mile long peninsula.
“Through a new public health facility and improvements to local parks, the City will provide local access to new community health resources and wellness programs, modeled after programs elsewhere in the city,” the plan reads.
“New York City’s recovery cannot and will not be about going back to the way things were,” Adams said during the announcement. “This is more than a to-do list — it is a complete reset with more than 70 concrete actions we will take to tear down the barriers to progress and build up a strong, resilient city with opportunity for everyone.”
The facility would be financed through the city’s Strategy for Equity and Economic Development Fund, aimed at ensuring essential services across the city’s oft forgotten communities.
St. John’s Episcopal Hospital is currently the only hospital on the peninsula. It recently faced the threat of cutbacks from the state in March of 2021 — a suggestion vehemently opposed by local leaders.
The closest Level 1 adult trauma center, Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, for residents of the peninsula is more than 10 miles away, while Cohen Children’s Medical Center, the nearest Level 1 pediatric trauma center in Queens, is nearly 13 miles from the peninsula’s eastern end and more than 23 miles from the west.
Ahead of Adams’ announcement, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, Assemblymemebr Khaleel Anderson and State Sen. James Sanders Jr. penned a letter to the mayor asking for investment in healthcare for the area.
Richards said he and NYC Health + Hospitals toured COVID-19 Centers of Excellence to form an idea of what a facility on the peninsula might look like but has heard nothing since the transition to the Adams administration in “another unfortunate example of Rockaway families falling through the cracks of government.”
“Mr. Mayor, your winning campaign was centered on solving the disparities in our societies, specifically the ones families of color have suffered through during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the letter says, urging follow through.
“By funding and constructing an NYC Health + Hospitals facility on the Rockaway Peninsula, we can begin to address these inequities and dramatically improve the overall health and well-being of those who call Rockaway home,” Richards added. “As we emerge from the Omicron wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and fuel Queens’ comeback, it’s now NYC Health + Hospitals and City government’s turn to finally do right by the families of Rockaway.”
Health + Hospitals did not respond to request for comment by print time.
