Joseph Quagliata, CEO of South Nassau Communities Hospital, is retiring

After spending nearly 40 years working in Oceanside, Joseph Quagliata, the president and CEO of South Nassau Communities Hospital, will retire at the end of the year.

Quagliata, who came to the hospital in 1973 to work in the finance department, announced his retirement in a press release that also named his successor, Richard Murphy. Murphy will join the hospital staff in mid-September, working with Quagliata until he retires on Dec. 31.

“I will be working with the Board of Directors on continuing to help them think through some of the strategic issues and initiatives facing us for the next two years,” Quagliata said. “So I’m not going to be out of the game. And I probably will continue to have my hand in this business for the foreseeable future in one way or another.”

In May 1974, a few months after Quagliata came to SNCH, the chief financial officer retired, and Quagliata was promoted to the position. In 1998 he was named president and CEO.

Since then the hospital has grown dramatically, from about 300 beds to 435. But the hospital has kept its focus on personal treatment, which Quagliata said he is most proud of.

“When we were a small hospital, many of the folks literally walked to work,” he said. “So people who were here were their friends and relatives and extended families, and they treated them that way.

“Fast-forward 40 years, and people come from Staten Island and Queens and Brooklyn,” he continued. “We have a work force of about 3,000 people now, and it’s still a place where we have extraordinarily committed, mission-driven people who care deeply about every patient that comes to this hospital.”

Quagliata oversaw the hospital’s expansion in 2006, when its new north wing was completed. It increased the size of the inpatient unit as well as the surgical units, and added new labor and delivery rooms to the maternity ward.