Mount Sinai South Nassau opens new medical facility in Long Beach

Mount Sinai South Nassau has opened a multi-specialty facility in Long Beach as part of an ongoing effort to restore medical care on the barrier island after Superstorm Sandy forced the closure of Long Beach Medical Center. 

The $35 million pavilion opened Tuesday, three years after the hospital system broke ground. The facility helps fill the gap in medical care for Long Beach and South Shore residents created after Sandy in 2012 shuttered the medical center.

With state and FEMA funds, Mount Sinai South Nassau has spent more than $73 million in health care revitalization in Long Beach, including the Long Beach Emergency Department and Mount Sinai South Nassau-Long Beach, Primary Care, a news release said.

“This new, state-of-the-art site represents our commitment to help restore specialty medical services on the barrier island,” said Dr. Adhi Sharma, president of Mount Sinai South Nassau. Sharma said the facility will provide care for a wide range of conditions and will expand services "as the need demands.”

The center is located at 435 E. Bay Dr. and offers cardiology, gastroenterology, urology, pain management, X-rays and lab services. Pain management doctors plan to begin seeing patients in the fall, the release said. 

The pavilion has 15 private patient exam rooms, four procedure rooms, an X-ray room and eight procedure preparation and recovery rooms. Health officials expect the center to create 30 new jobs. 

Long Beach Acting City Manager and Police Chief Ronald J. Walsh said the facility will “address many of the health care voids that have existed on the barrier island since Sandy.”

“We are pleased to see these much-needed medical services and employment opportunities return to Long Beach,” he said. “The opening of the pavilion is also an important step toward rebuilding what was once a thriving sector of Long Beach’s economy.”

The facility is on the former site of the Long Beach Medical Center, which was shuttered and demolished after being flooded by Sandy in 2012. The center, which lost money each year from 2007 on, including $2.5 million in 2011, was among the most financially distressed hospitals in the state before the storm, the health department said in 2013.

The cash-strapped facility went bankrupt in 2014 and was purchased by South Nassau Communities Hospital. Three of the buildings from the original hospital were demolished, officials previously said.

Long Beach Chamber of Commerce co-chair Jamie Lynch said many residents wondered if anything would replace the defunct hospital, adding that Mount Sinai South Shore upheld its commitment to restore health care services to the city. Lynch said traveling off-island for care, especially in the summer months, is burdensome to residents and pose particular obstacles for the elderly.

“We made a commitment to Long Beach and today that vision becomes a reality,” said Anthony Cancellieri, co-chair of Mount Sinai South Nassau’s board of directors. “The pavilion is the anchor of and an important milestone in the hospital’s mission to ensure that residents have access to the advanced health care that they need and deserve, without always having to go over the bridge.”

By Brinley Hineman

brinley.hineman@newsday.com

Brinley Hineman covers the Town of Hempstead and the City of Long Beach for Newsday. She previously was a reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, and is a West Virginia native.