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QUEENS WEEKLY, APRIL 5, 2020
The former St. John’s Queens Hospital on Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst is shown in this 2014 photo after it was redeveloped. File photo/Liam La Guerre
Queens residents, primarily
children; nearly two
dozen schools had to be
temporarily closed to help
curb the spike in cases.
The H1N1 flu outbreak
wasn’t nearly as widespread
or lethal then as
coronavirus is proving
to be today, but it was
prevalent enough to send
many Queens residents to
Elmhurst Hospital seeking
care.
“The ER is just inundated,”
said Dario Centorcelli,
then an Elmhurst Hospital
spokesperson, in a May
2009 TimesLedger report.
“A busy day for our Pediatric
ER Department used to
be 250 patients a day. Now
we’re seeing 350 on a regular
basis.”
The TimesLedger report
noted that the hospital
had treated on May 18, 2009
“a record 407 children and
more than 800 patients in
total.”
Growing numbers
The city, state and federal
governments worked
together to limit the spread
and scope of the swine flu
outbreak. While the crisis
abated, the pressure on
Elmhurst Hospital’s emergency
department would
continue to increase in the
decade to come.
City data revealed that
visits to the hospital’s ER
grew by 38 percent between
2009 and 2014. As a
Level 1 trauma center, as
of 2018, it was receiving
1,200 trauma admissions
per year.
Last year, a long-awaited
expansion of Elmhurst’s
emergency department
finally got off the ground.
The project, estimated to
cost $43 million, includes
renovations as well as the
creation of a second story
for the department. Thirtythree
new patient rooms
would be created, including
rooms for bariatric, special
pathogens and critical care
isolation.
But these improvements
will come long after the
coronavirus crisis ends.
Construction was scheduled
to start this spring,
with completion projected
for 2023.
While the city and state
scramble to find readyto
use hospital bed space
across the region, they
won’t find them at the longshuttered
medical centers
in Queens.
St. John’s and Mary Immaculate
were redeveloped
over the past decade, transformed
primarily into
new residential units. The
former St. John’s Hospital
changed hands several
times, and is now a mixedused
development featuring
apartments and retail/
office space.
Parkway Hospital,
meanwhile, remains abandoned.
Plans reported in
2018 to redevelop the site
into residential housing
have yet to come to fruition
.A
Google Maps photo
taken in 2018 shows the
former entrance awning in
tatters and windows boarded
up. The Department of
Buildings database reveals
no new building permits
for the former medical center;
the most recent filing
occurred in 2009.
Along with Elmhurst
Hospital, nine other hospitals
currently serve
Queens residents: Mount
Sinai Queens, Astoria;
Northwell’s Long Island
Jewish, Forest Hills;
Wyckoff Heights Medical
Center, Brooklyn;
NewYork-Presbyterian
Queens, Flushing; Jamaica
Hospital Medical Center;
Flushing Hospital Medical
Center; NYC Health + Hospitals
Queens, Jamaica; St.
John’s Episcopal Hospital,
Far Rockaway; and Northwell
Long Island Jewish
Medical Center, New Hyde
Park.
Reach reporter Robert
Pozarycki by e-mail at
rpozarycki@qns.com or by
phone at (718) 260-4549.
Dr. Victor Politi stands in St. John’s Queens Hospital’s empty emergency room in April 2009,
weeks after the medical center closed. File photo/Christina Santucci
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