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Overcast St. John's health center in Rockaway honors Lawrence resident
What’s being called the first comprehensive women’s health center on the Rockaway Peninsula has opened to much fanfare.
Episcopal Health Services — which operates St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway — welcomed some 100 people to its new Margaret O. Carpenter Women’s Health Center at 105-38 Rockaway Beach Blvd., in Rockaway Park.
Named for a longtime hospital supporter, the health center’s goals are to improve access to women’s health services — which officials said are severely lacking in the Far Rockaway and Rockaway communities — while offering multiple medical specialties and new equipment.
With multiple specialties under one roof, patients won’t have to travel to multiple locations for vital health services.
The Rockaways, hospital officials said, are “geographically isolated,” part of a “transportation desert.” Traveling to other parts of the city for women’s health services can take more than an hour using public transportation.
The Rockaways see a higher rate of pregnant women who seek late or no prenatal care when compared to New York City overall, according to health officials. Breast cancer is a leading cause of premature death in the Rockaways, and the death rate for cancer is higher than the overall rate in New York City.
Carpenter has volunteered at the hospital since the 1970s, according to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital chief executive Gerald Walsh, later joining its board of trustees.
Carpenter attended last week’s festivities, where Walsh and others honored her with a plaque recognizing her “decades of unwavering support, dedicated service, devotion and commitment to Episcopal Health Services Inc., and the Rockaway community.”
Guests filled an outdoor tent in the health center’s parking lot, finding balloons and goody bags. The Right Rev. Bishop Lawrence Provenzano — the hospital board chair — opened the festivities with prayer before a dozen others spoke about Carpenter.
“I am deeply grateful and completely humbled by” the naming in tribute, Carpenter said. “This is a great day for all the women on this peninsula, for they finally have access to state-of-the-art health services.”
Those services include new equipment like a 3-D mammography machine that aids in more successful breast cancer detection. There’s also a bone density machine to help in diagnosing osteoporosis conditions, and an ultrasound that produces high-resolution images.
A $3.1 million grant from the state’s health department funded the center’s design and construction, and paid for the equipment.
“The lack of adequate health care facilities in the Rockaways often forces women to travel miles and miles away from their homes in order to get the medical care they need — if they get care at all,” Queens borough president Donovan Richards Jr. said. “That is because many women in the Rockaways ultimately have to go without critical care because getting to a health care facility is just too time-consuming and expensive.
“Access to quality health care shouldn’t be a luxury for some,” he added. “It should be a human right for all.”
