Friday, July 11, 2025
Long Island Jewish Valley Stream Hospial is undergoing a significant upgrade to its imaging services, marked by the removal of a 34-year-old MRI machine on June 6 using a Liebherr 300-ton crane positioned on the campus of Dever Elementary School.
Dever Elementary School and LIJ Valley Stream Hospital have a long-standing history of collaboration. The partnership took a different form, as the school allowed a large crane to be stationed on its property to support a major equipment operation at the hospital.
“I must admit, over the years, and I’ve been here over 20 years, we’ve built a very strong relationship with them (Dever Elementary School), a two way relationship where we’ve collaborated in a lot of many varieties of community and educational initiatives,” Riza Cioku, vice president of hospital operations, said. “We’ve done it both ways, where they brought children here to our facility, and we’ve done the same thing. We participated in various initiatives for them. So as a result of that, we are grateful for their continued partnership with us and generosity to allow us to be able to do this, especially in the middle of the school season.”
The hospital’s MRI machine, a GE Signa 1.5 Tesla unit weighing roughly 17,000 pounds and surrounded by eight steel plates each weighing 5,000 pounds, has been the hospital’s primary imaging tool for more than three decades. It was among the oldest regularly used MRIs in the Northwell Health system.
“This was our only MRI, and it did everything for us,” Director of Imaging Services Sean Maraj said. “It was beyond its life cycle, if you will. It was way past what we like to categorize as extended life, so we were servicing the machine and just hoping for the best. If it went down, there were no parts to really repair it. So, it was a project long overdue. It overstayed its welcome, but it was very faithful to the building of the community; it did an incredible job, but it was a project that was long overdue.”
The $7.5 million project involves more than just replacing the MRI machine. The hospital is undertaking a complete renovation of the MRI suite, including new flooring, upgraded air handling systems for heating and cooling and a redesigned patient waiting area to improve overall experience and functionality.
The new MRI, an MRI Signa Artist 1.5T, will feature faster imaging technology, a more spacious design to help patients with claustrophobia and capabilities to serve patients with pacemakers—a program that was not previously available at this location.
Officials said, the entire project is expected to be completed by October.
The complexity of removing such a large, heavy piece of equipment required specialized rigging that could not be performed through standard hospital entrances or corridors.
Due to the proximity of the hospital to the school and the shared property line, the crane was placed on the school’s campus to provide the necessary height and reach to remove the MRI safely through the hospital’s roof.
“We were more than happy to grant temporary access to our fields at Dever to facilitate the removal on Friday, June 6, 2025, of the current MRI scanning unit and the installation of a new, advanced model in November of this year,” District 13 Superintendent Judith LaRocca wrote in an email. “We hope this state-of-the-art technology will serve as a lifesaving resource for the hospital and our community.”
The operation took place during a school holiday to minimize disruption, and the area was secured with multiple safety precautions.
Coordination with Nassau County police and the FDNY ensured that emergency vehicle access to the hospital’s emergency department was maintained by temporarily reversing traffic flow around the rigging site.
“Instead of ambulances coming through the normal pathway to get to arrive to our emergency room, we’ve reversed the traffic flow,” Cioku said. “And to avoid having them to be on standby while they have a patient in the ambulance by reversing the traffic flow has allowed us for them to be able to come right into the emergency room, and if need be for them to wait a few minutes, then they’ll be waiting when there is no patient in the ambulance.”
In preparation for the project, the hospital implemented a temporary MRI unit housed in a trailer outside the emergency department, ensuring that imaging services continue uninterrupted during renovations. This mobile unit has been on site for nearly a year but became fully operational in April to support patients during the renovation.
