People line up outside of Elmhurst Hospital to get tested for COVID-19.
COVID-19 PANDEMIC EXPOSES
BOROUGH’S GAPING WOUND
alone,” Queens Borough
President Donovan Richards
said. “We were not
prepared. This past year,
the pandemic did not
show us anything new,
but it did reveal how deep
inequity runs right here
in the greatest city in the
world; and unfortunately,
even in the most diverse
county in the continental
United States — Queens.”
Richards began his
first State of the Borough
address with the grim
statistics that illustrated
why Queens became the
“epicenter of the epicenter”
when COVID-19 arrived
last spring.
“In a borough with
2.4 million people, we
38-15 Bell Boulevard
Bayside, New York 11361
718-260-8303
www.qns.com
Photo by Stefan Jeremiah/REUTERS
With just nine hospital
campuses in Queens,
and with the closure of
four hospitals in the last
12 years, Richards said
the removal of more than
840 beds and thousands
of medical professionals
and leaving communities
like Far Rockaway with
even less access to healthcare
is unacceptable.
“That is why my administration
is going to
fight with the same zeal
of our healthcare heroes
to greatly expand access
to healthcare — especially
in communities that
have long felt the sting of
inequity,” Richards said.
“This means pushing for
more community-based
BRIAN RICE
Publisher
ZACH GEWELB
Editor
BILL PARRY
News Editor
KATRINA MEDOFF
Copy Editor
RALPH D’ONOFRIO
V.P. of Advertising
health centers, offering
preventative medicine
and keeping non-emergencies
out of our crowded
emergency rooms.
This means advocating
for new hospital construction
and increasing funding
to our existing hospitals
— which are already
doing so much with far
less than they need.”
While the message
in the Borough President’s
address was that
“Queens would rise” at
the other end of the pandemic,
there was a troubling
development out
of the Rockaways where
Richards grew up and
represented on the City
Council before moving
into Borough Hall.
Nearly a year after the
first COVID-19 case in
Queens was identified at
St.John’s Episcopal Hospital,
a proposal was under
consideration by the
New York State Department
of Health to dramatically
downsize the only
remaining hospital on the
Rockaway peninsula. One
of the plans under consideration
would have reduced
the capacity at the
hospital from 250 beds to
just 15 creating a “micro
hospital” while slashing
specialty services like
pediatrics and labor and
delivery while eliminating
1,000 jobs.
Assemblyman Khaleel
Anderson said the proposals
were “wholly unacceptable
and completely
insulting to the communities
surrounding the hospital
that are still reeling
from the pandemic and
already face tremendous
healthcare insecurity.”
Anderson added that
the hospital needed to be
expanded, not downsized.
“Slashing beds from
ART & PRODUCTION
Special Sections
Manager: Leah Mitch
ADVERTISING
Senior Account
Executive:
Kathy Wenk
Account Executives:
David Strauss, Sherri Rossi
BY BILL PARRY
One year into the COVID
19 pandemic, in which
nearly 7,500 Queens residents
perished, a gaping
wound was exposed by
the public health emergency:
The borough’s
hospitals were caught
woefully unprepared for
the onslaught because of
decisions made years ago.
“The shame, the scar
on us all, is we lost far too
many more due to the inequities
which plague our
systems and institutions.
Those deaths were preventable.
Those deaths
were systemic failures,
not the science or the
challenges of the crisis
have just 1.72 hospital
beds per one thousand
people — by far the lowest
in the city. That cannot
continue,” Richards
said. “In a borough with
2.4 million people, we
have just nine hospital
campuses. Just in the
last twelve years, four of
our hospitals have closed,
removing more than
840 beds and thousands
of medical professionals
and leaving communities
like Far Rockaway
with even less access to
healthcare. To accept this
as normal would be to accept
that the 2.4 million
lives here in Queens are
not of equal value to those
elsewhere.”
PROUD MEMBER OF NEW YORK PRESS ASSOCIATION, NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION AND INLAND PRESS ASSOCIATION
the peninsula’s only hospital
during a pandemic is
like cutting off the oxygen
supply to a person who is
drowning,” he said. “This
is systemic medical racism
impacting Black and
Brown communities in
the Rockaways, plain and
simple, and my colleagues
and I will not stand for it.”
Days later, it was announced
that the proposed
cuts had been
halted “now and for the
foreseeable future” after
elected officials in
Queens formed a united
front to push back against
Albany.
“Cutting services at St.
John’s would have been a
death sentence for this
community,” state Senator
James Sanders said.
“However, through the
collective effort of government
officials working
together side-by-side, we
were able to accomplish
something great and now
this hospital can continue
to provide the quality and
necessary healthcare it is
known for.”
During a rally outside
the hospital, the Borough
President confirmed that
the plan to drastically cut
capacity and services were
put on “reprieve” by Governor
Andrew Cuomo.
Bishop Lawrence
Provenzano, the chairman
of the hospital’s
board, said, “The next
step is going to be that
we should never be here
again.”
The same premise
holds true at Elmhurst
Hospital which was thrust
into the national spotlight
a year ago after the staff
was overwhelmed by COVID
patients with 13 dying
during one 24-hour period.
Continued on Page 31
PRODUCTION
MANAGER
Deborah Cusick
CLASSIFIED
Classified Director:
Celeste Alamin
Classified Sales
Manager:
Eugena Pechenaya
TIMESLEDGER.COM TL TIMESLEDGER, GUIDE TO QUEENS, SPRING/SUMMER 2021 A3
/www.qns.com
/www.qns.com
/TIMESLEDGER.COM
