Elmhurst Hospital to get $27 mil upgrade to maternal, infant services
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Governor Kathy Hochul announced a new $27.5 million allocation for Queens’ Elmhurst Hospital on Wednesday. The funding will go toward upgrading the hospital's Women’s Pavilion and constructing its first pediatric intensive care unit. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
The state will send over $27 million to Elmhurst Hospital this week to help the city healthcare facility better care for mothers and children, Governor Kathy Hochul said from Western Queens on Wednesday.
The new funds will allow Elmhurst Hospital to expand its women’s health center and allow it to build the hospital’s first Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.
The announcement was celebrated by Elmhurst hospital staff and elected officials on Wednesday, as the Queens hospital continues to turn the page from the darkest days of the COVID pandemic. In 2020, eyes and news cameras were fixated on Elmhurst, the epicenter of the epicenter of the pandemic, where deaths occurred so frequently that refrigerator trucks were needed to store bodies. Since then, officials have looked toward improving care at the hospital, which sees over a million visits annually.
“This hospital, which had images splashed all over the nation and the world during the pandemic as truly the epicenter of the pandemic – we've come a long way in healing,” the governor said from the hospital on Wednesday. “We are now saying that we may have been the epicenter of the pandemic, but now we're the epicenter of women’s health.”
Elmhurst Hospital, once known as the epicenter of the pandemic, received $27.5 million to upgrade its women’s and pedantic care on Wednesday. Eagle file photo by Jacob Kaye
The governor’s office says that $20 million of the funding will go toward expanding Elmhursts’ Women’s Pavilion, which focuses on women’s healthcare, more than doubling it in size with the addition of three new floors.
The upgraded center will be able to increase the hospital’s capacity to provide various kinds of care for women in Queens, including high-risk pregnancy services, nutrition services, family planning resources and prenatal education including breastfeeding classes.
There will also be an increased focus on mental health care specifically geared for women.
“This new expansion of space will provide critical services to our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our abuelas, our tias, and more importantly, all the women of this beloved borough,” said Elmhurst CEO Dr. Helen Arteaga-Landaverde. “Promoting women's health at every stage and at every age, is ensuring equal quality access to care. This is something that we had once dreamed about, but now we're seeing it as a reality.”
While the hospital has moved past the horrors of the pandemic, the diverse, often low-income population Elmhurst serves has struggled with mortality rates.
“We have the highest rates of birth in all of New York City, this investment is not only needed, but necessary to really do a reduction in infant and maternal mortality rates,” said Arteaga-Landaverde.
In 2020, 29 New York City women died of pregnancy-related deaths, nearly a third of which were in Queens, according to city health data.
That rate is significantly higher for Black and brown women, who accounted for 72.5 percent of those deaths in 2020.
While infant mortality declined from 2016 to 2019, there remain troubling trends.
The infant mortality rate among Non-Hispanic Black infants increased during that time frame, from 8.37 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2016 to 8.46 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2019.
Over that time, the five boroughs had an infant mortality rate of 3.50 per 1,000 live births.
“Our numbers are disgraceful in this country compared to other countries,” Hochul said. “I'm not going to tolerate that any longer, because everyone deserves the best shot in life.”
In many life or death situations, specifically with children, Elmhurst just didn’t have the capacity. Without a pediatric ICU, hundreds of babies and children had to be treated elsewhere.
“Not having a pediatric ICU has meant that many of our little children and injuries, mostly injured children from our community, need to be transferred out of this borough and taken to several other hospitals away from their home,” said Arteaga-Landaverde.
Arteaga-Landaverde said that in the past year alone, 600 children have had to be transferred out of Elmhurst and Queens hospitals, often to other boroughs far from family.
The remaining $7.5 million in funding from the state aims to make up for that by constructing the first pediatric ICU for the hospital.
Hochul called the building of the ICU “long overdue.”
In the last few years, Elmhurst has been the benefactor of millions of dollars in support from local officials.
Last fall, the hospital received $17 million from the City Council, which went toward six different projects, including relocating the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, expanding its MRI suite and upgrading the hospital’s pediatric adult emergency room.
In August, Borough President Donovan Richards made an allocation of his own to benefit women and babies who go to Elmhurst though a $3 million gift used to put maternal and neonatal services on the same floor.
“This investment without a doubt, will save lives,” Richards said, referring to the governor’s new funding allocation. “It will uplift countless families as they begin their journey through life together, and there's no reason that you should be born into a disparity.”
“Your Zip code, your socioeconomic status or immigration status should not be a determinant on whether you have quality care and a quality facility that will be built right here in Elmhurst,” the BP added.
