Learning about the Long Beach ER

Free-Standing Emergency Department

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“It has everything an Emergency Room should,” said Nubia Rodriguez spokesperson for South Nassau Communities Hospital (SNCH), “It is open day and night, has a full staff of doctors and nurses, on site laboratory facilities, CAT scan and radiology services, plus acute cardiac and stroke treatment.” Rodriguez was describing the new full service emergency department in Long Beach to members of the Island Park Civic Association (IPCA) at its Nov. 10 meeting.

It is Long Island’s first off-campus, hospital-based emergency department. The opening fulfilled a promise made by the board of directors and administration of South Nassau after it acquired the assets of the former Long Beach Medical Center to re-establish 9-1-1-ambulance emergency medical services for the residents of the barrier island.

The Family Medicine Center, located at 325 East Bay Drive, is staffed by board certified doctors; Cheryl Carrao (family practice) and Bernadette Riley (family and osteopathic manipulative medicine), resident physicians and nurses.

Now known as the Long Beach Emergency Department (LBED) it features six private treatment rooms, including an observation unit with three beds where patients can be held for up to 23 hours, a special room for infectious disease cases, a medical laboratory, a triage area, a behavioral treatment area, a decontamination room, a trauma room and advanced medical imaging department that includes an X-ray machine and a 64-slice CT scanner, which is the only operational CT scanner of any type on the barrier island. It is a 6,300-square-foot facility. South Nassau also has ambulances stationed at the Long Beach facility, ready to transport patients to its main campus in Oceanside as the need arises.

Existing New York State Department of Health protocol requires that all acute strokes, heart attacks and trauma patients transported by the 9-1-1 Emergency Medical System by-pass the Long Beach ED and be brought to the appropriate state-designated hospital. Patients treated and stabilized at the Emergency Department who require hospital admission or advanced levels of treatment will also be transferred.

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