North Shore-LIJ to build Ebola center

Multi-million dollar project will take at least 18 months, officials say

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North Shore-LIJ Health System officials said on Oct. 23 that they intend to develop a multi-million dollar biological containment unit at one of its 16 hospitals, designed to combat infectious disease outbreaks such as Ebola.

The announcement came days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo selected North Shore-LIJ as one of eight hospitals statewide — and the only Nassau-based hospital — to act as a regional center to treat Ebola patients.

Officials from LIJ said they have not decided which hospital would be chosen, but spokesman Terence Lynam said one of its Nassau hospitals — in Valley Stream, Glen Cove, New Hyde Park, Manhasset, Plainview or Syosset — would likely be chosen.

A bio-containment unit would take at least 18 months to build, North Shore officials said. “In light of the public’s anxiety about Ebola,” said Michael Dowling, president and chief executive officer of North Shore-LIJ, “it’s clear that we need to develop a more permanent solution to meeting public health needs in the event of a major infectious disease outbreak in the future.”

The announcement also came on the same day of the first confirmed Ebola case in the New York, when the state Department of Health said a medical aid worker who was aiding Ebola patients in Guinea, and traveled back to JFK Airport on Oct. 17, contracted the virus. As of Oct. 27, the aid worker was being quarantined and treated at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, which was also one of the eight hospitals that Cuomo had designated as a regional Ebola center.

There are currently four biological containment units in the U.S., and Dowling said North Shore will model its facility after two of them: units in the Nebraska Medical Center and Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. The other two are in Bethesda, Md. and Missoula, Mont.

Lynam said North Shore officials are also considering developing a second biological containment unit at one of its New York City-based hospitals in Queens, Staten Island or Manhattan, but that those discussions are still in preliminary stages.

North Shore’s Glen Cove hospital will temporarily serve as a specialized-treatment center for Ebola patients, and officials said they are recruiting a volunteer team of critical care experts to work there. The center will be in a “separate, discreet” area in the hospital, officials said, and all other existing clinical services at Glen Cove will remain unaffected.

Officials added that all North Shore facilities have established isolation areas in the event that they receive a suspected Ebola patient.