Locals want mayor to keep promise on Rockaway trauma center site

Locals want the city to allocate $300,000 in the budget in order to help get a much desired trauma center on a patch of city-owned land in Rockaway. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

By Ryan Schwach

As City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Mayor Eric Adams shook hands on a $115.9 billion city budget, many aspects remain unclear. Among them, if previously committed funds to secure a site for a trauma center in Rockaway will be included.

The city had already reportedly committed to allocating $300,000 in the budget that will help get the site, and while some parts of the budget continued to be negotiated over the weekend, local officials and community members want the administration to keep their promise.

Hours before the handshake deal on the budget, Rockaway locals and elected officials called on the city to get the money in the city’s budget, a step which would check off another big to-do off their list towards getting the center.

The Adams administration said in April they would commit to using a vacant city-owned plot of land on Beach 62nd in the heart of the Rockaway peninsula for the trauma center, which locals have been calling for for more than a decade.

The city also committed to producing the $300,000 needed to pay to transfer the land from its current owner, the New York City Housing Authority, to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services.

The hope was that the $300,000 would be included in the Fiscal Year 2026 budget, which will be finalized when it comes to a vote on Monday.

Queens Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers – who has made getting a trauma center in the Rockaways a main priority – told the Eagle that as of Friday afternoon the $300,000 is still being negotiated.

In a report last year, a task force dedicated to studying the possibility of bringing a trauma center to the Rockaways identified the land as a possible site.

The report pointed out the area would not require any demolition, is near a subway station and not adjacent to nearby residences.

At a rally held adjacent to the city-owned land they want to use on Friday afternoon, local officials called out the mayor for being noncommittal on the promise that he would include the cash in the budget.

“Shame on Mayor Adams,” said local Community Board 14 District Manager Felicia Johnson. “We had an agreement and a plan that he had to turn this land over so that we can go ahead and fulfill our dreams and what we need.”

The rally was organized and planned by Brooks-Powers, but the councilmember was called to City Hall for budget negotiations and was not present.

“The mayoral administration made a commitment to do such a transfer and to make it happen…and it seems that the mayoral administration is reneging on that commitment,” said State Assemblymember Khaleel Anderson, who ran the event in Brooks-Powers’ absence.

While Brooks-Powers said the administration privately committed to the site after last year’s budget when the city put $25 million into the proposal – City Hall has not mentioned it publicly and their comments have been vague and have not explicitly mentioned the land on Beach 62nd Street or the land transfer.

“Mayor Adams continues to support the need for equitable access to health care access across the city, including on the Rockaway Peninsula,” a City Hall spokesperson said on Friday. “That is why we invested $50 million in capital funds to support the development of a trauma center in Far Rockaway. We continue to work with the community and City Council to increase access to health care in Far Rockaway.”

Rockaway officials including Assemblymember Khaleel Anderson and Councilmember Joann Ariola called on Mayor Eric Adams to keep money in the budget to help the community get a site for a trauma hospital. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

At the rally, locals doubled-down on their calls for the funding, and overall for a trauma center in Rockaway, which has been a major ask from the community since Peninsula Hospital closed in 2015.

Currently, the closest level one trauma center for most Rockaway residents is around 10 miles away at Jamaica Hospital, which takes more than half an hour to get to, often made more difficult by ever-present traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway.

“The nearest emergency trauma facility is approximately 10 miles away, and response times continue to place people's lives at risk,” said Johnson. “This proposed trauma center would be the first step in writing decades of disinvestment and neglect, ensuring that all New Yorkers, regardless of their zip code, can access life saving medical treatment when it matters most.”

Police Officer Jonathan Diller, who was shot and killed in Far Rockaway last year, has become a main example of that sentiment.

Diller was shot on-duty in March of last year, and had to be brought to Jamaica Hospital to receive treatment despite being shot just a few blocks away from Rockaway’s only hospital, St. John’s Episcopal, which does not have trauma treatment capabilities.

“The people of this peninsula have waited long enough, and anyone who has spent any time on this peninsula knows that we've had situations where every second counts and Jamaica Hospital and Brookdale Hospitals are just too far away,” said Ariola. “We saw what happened when seconds counted with Officer Diller…I don't know if a trauma center would have saved his life, but I don't know that it wouldn't have either. We have to have it here.”

While it has long been considered a long shot, a trauma center in the Rockaways has gained significantly more traction in the last two years with endorsements from Mayor Adams as well as Speaker Adams.

However, while there is a site planned and some money allocated toward the project, Rockaway is still far from getting the facility they want.

Rockaway would need the state to approve either a level one or level two trauma center, which categorizes the type and level of service a trauma center is capable of providing.

Officials want one of the top two levels, and anything less would mean that any new hospital would lack the ability to address the two types of trauma incidents officials want treated in Rockaway: shootings and drownings.

There have been questions about whether or not Rockaway has enough trauma cases to reach the requirements for a level one or level two center, but city health care officials and Brooks-Powers said the licensing has already been discussed with state health officials.