Public Employee Press

HHC: Breaking new ground

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts joined Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Health and Hospitals Corp. Acting President Alan D. Aviles on Oct.11 to kick off major expansions at three HHC hospitals. Harlem Hospital Center, Kings County Hospital Center and Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center will be the beneficiaries of $406 million in renovation projects.

These improvements are part of a citywide five-year, $1.3 billion program to improve HHC’s 11 public hospitals, which in recent years have received some of the highest accreditation scores ever earned by any hospitals, public or private, in New York City. The HHC hospitals serve more than 1.3 million city residents annually, including 450,000 uninsured patients.

“This is an example of Mayor Bloomberg’s continued support for our city hospitals and our members,” said Ms. Roberts as she got ready to dig in at the ceremonial groundbreaking in Harlem.

At Kings County Hospital Center, the first stop on the tour, the mayor opened a new 260,000 square-foot pavilion. The new facility features a modern emergency department and trauma suite, a birthing center with spacious labor and delivery suites and state-of-the-art treatment options for cancer patients. A new Ambulatory Care Center scheduled to open next spring is also under construction.

The next stop was Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the South Bronx to break ground for a $12.5 million, 46,000 square-foot renovation and expansion of its top-rated emergency department.

The project will improve facilities for the 145,000 patients treated each year in the city’s busiest emergency room. The new emergency department will provide modern technology, better patient privacy and bathroom facilities, a private vehicle drop-off and a separate area for ambulance traffic.

The Harlem Hospital Center was the last stop on the tour. Harlem’s $243 million modernization plan is HHC’s largest rebuilding project. This new project will renovate the Martin Luther King Pavilion and build a new pavilion on Lenox Avenue connecting it to the Ron Brown Pavilion as one unified health care complex. This new pavilion will include a new emergency department, operating rooms, diagnostic and treatment services, a critical care suite and a modern radiology center.

Investment in the future
Harlem treats nearly 80,000 emergency room cases annually and more than 320,000 patients use the hospital’s clinics. It is also home to a nationally recognized Asthma Center, one of only six such clinical research centers in the country. Its award-winning Tuberculosis Clinic is one of only three in the nation.

“These three major modernization projects constitute yet another round of critical investment in the future of our public hospital system that serves as a safety net and line of emergency first response for all New Yorkers,” said HHC Acting President Aviles.

“All three of these hospitals are in the poorest neighborhoods,” said Local 1549 Vice President Ralph Palladino. “At one time or another there were plans to shut them down. Now they are considered among the best in the city.”

Earlier this year, members of severalDC 37 locals celebrated the opening of Coney Island Hospital’s new Inpatient Tower Pavilion. “This represents a complete change of attitude by City Hall since a coalition led by DC 37 defeated Mayor Giuliani’s efforts to privatize the hospital,” said Roberts.