Mount Sinai Queens held a ceremonial groundbreaking for a new clinically advanced ICU at its Astoria location Thursday morning, which will see the hospital almost triple its ICU capacity.
The April 30 event, which could more accurately be described as a “wall-shattering” ceremony, marks the beginning of a 16-month project that will see Mount Sinai transform the now-vacant sixth-floor of the hospital’s new building at 25-10 30th Ave. into a state-of-the-art intensive care unit.
The $23 million expansion will see Mount Sinai Queens increase its capacity from eight beds to 21 beds as well as adding a procedural room, which will allow the hospital to perform complex surgical procedures locally.
What will become Mount Sinai Queens’ Intensive Care Unit. Photo by Ramy Mahmoud
Cameron Hernandez, president and chief operating officer of Mount Sinai Queens, said the expansion would allow the hospital to treat more patients without transferring them to other locations in the city.
“The new ICU will be a modern, clinically advanced environment designed to support complex, high-acuity care,” Hernandez said. “This space will elevate what we can do here in Mount Sinai Queens.”
Mount Sinai Queens President Cameron Hernandez. Photo by Ramy Mahmoud
He added that patients and families are “at the heart” of the expansion, stating that the project will ensure local residents will receive the highest level of care without having to leave their neighborhood.
The expansion will also allow the hospital to ramp up capacity in other areas, Hernandez said.
At present, the hospital’s ICU is located adjacent to its telemetry unit, which carries out cardiac monitoring. The addition of a new ICU facility will allow Mount Sinai to provide more beds for patients in the telemtry unit, according to Hernandez.
“There are people who are waiting for the beds up there,” Hernandez said. “So we’ll be able to expand more of those beds and get patients out of the emergency room.”
The project will see the entire sixth-floor converted into an ICU unit. The floor had been left vacant since Mount Sinai opened the new building in 2018 to facilitate future expansion and had become a “junk yard,” according to Hernandez.
Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony saw Mount Sinai representatives and local elected officials hammer through a wall on the sixth-floor to mark the beginning of the project.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, Assembly Member Diana Moreno and State Sen. Mike Gianaris. Photo by Ramy Mahmoud
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, who allocated $7 million in funding for the project, said the new ICU would “change lives for the better” in Queens.
“It means far fewer transfers to other hospitals or patients seeking treatment across the river in Manhattan,” Richards said in a statement. “We should not have to leave our borough or community to have access to quality care. That’s what today is all about.”
Referencing the Covid-19 pandemic, Richards said the new ICU would leave Mount Sinai in a better position to deal with a large influx of critically ill patients during future health emergencies.
“Western Queens is growing drastically… and we need to expand our healthcare opportunities,” Richards said.
State Sen. Mike Gianaris, who helped allocate $6 million in state funds toward the expansion, similarly said the expansion would ensure that the hospital has sufficient capacity to treat patients without transfering them to Manhattan.
“I am proud to provide $6 million in state funds for this new ICU at Mount Sinai Queens, which will transform the care they can provide and ensure our neighbors receive quality care closer to home,” Gianaris said in a statement.
Assembly Member Diana Moreno also attended Thursday’s ceremony, stating that the new ICU would become a critical space for the Queens community.
Moreno during Thursday’s wall-shattering. Photo by Ramy Mahmoud
“I am so deeply grateful to have a space that provides quality health care right here in my neighborhood,” Moreno told Mount Sinai staff. “I know firsthand that this will be an investment in quality care in our neighborhood.”
The ceremony concluded with Hernandez, Moreno, Richards, Gianaris and several other Mount Sinai workers taking sledgehammers to a partition wall to mark the beginning of the project, with Hernandez careful to remind participants not to strike the Mount Sinai logo in order to avoid “bad juju.”