What will replace the Long Beach Medical Center?

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Laozi, a Chinese philosopher in the 6th century B.C., is credited with the saying, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” That easily sums up the ongoing effort to provide the residents of the City of Long Beach with a new medical facility to replace the Long Beach Medical Center, which was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy. The effort to give the seaside city the medical services it needs has just begun.

As a former state assemblyman who represented Long Beach for 23 years in Albany, I was pleased with the announcement by South Nassau Communities Hospital that some type of facility would be located on the LBMC site. Everyone who’s interested in quality health care for the barrier island knows that its nearly 40,000 residents can’t survive on just emergency ambulances running back and forth from the beach to Oceanside, especially during heavy summer traffic.

The next series of steps in the quest for local medical care will be long and intense. Along the way, there will be a lot of questions that have to be answered by both the state Health Department and all of the players in this effort. At the outset, I give a lot of credit to new Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky, who is trying to get as much local input as possible and has become the voice of the community. At the same time he’s learning the job in Albany, he has plunged into post-LBMC debate as a leader, and not a follower.

I knew the medical center well. As a public official, I obtained many state dollars for ambulances and an upgraded emergency room. I served on the facility’s board for many years, and know what it meant to my family, all of whom were patients at one time or another. So, for purely personal reasons, I can’t just stay out of the debate.

The initial proposal by South Nassau is to spend $30 million to $40 million on some type of facility. In the wake of Sandy, the federal government gave South Nassau $154 million. Is $30 million or $40 million for Long Beach the right number? At this point, no one knows. Maybe South Nassau should put the rest of the money in escrow, just in case Long Beach needs more money spent as needs increase. The FEMA dollars were and are Long Beach dollars.

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