Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) Acting President Alan D. Aviles, Esq., today announced the opening of the new tower pavilion at Coney Island Hospital. The $80 million building features 212 inpatient beds with private and semi-private rooms and a new ground floor 9,500 square foot Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine Treatment Center with 32 examination rooms and new nautically themed “kid-friendly” waiting areas.  This completes the first major modernization of Coney Island Hospital in over 50 years.

“The opening of the new tower pavilion at Coney Island Hospital demonstrates our commitment to our public hospitals,” said Mayor Bloomberg.  “All New Yorkers deserve the best possible health care regardless of their ability to pay.  The residents of southern Brooklyn now have a state-of-the art hospital facility to go along with the high quality clinical care they have come to expect at Coney Island Hospital.”

The new tower pavilion will increase the efficiency of inpatient services by improving the location of services, making it easier for staff and patients to move between units.  Obstetrics will be located adjacent to Women’s Services and the Critical Care unit will be located next to the Stepdown unit, where critical care patients spend time after their condition improves before being discharged.  This will allow for overflow resources and staffing backup capacity to increase and provide better service for patients when the volume of admissions rises above normal levels. 

The new tower pavilion will combine the latest medical technology with many patient-centered programs and initiatives designed specifically to serve the growing immigrant communities in Southern Brooklyn.  The hospital will feature a state-of-the-art universal directional system along with multi-lingual signs.  By incorporating references and elements familiar to the diverse multinational community, Coney Island Hospital will make it easier for non-English speaking patients and their families to find their way around the hospital.  Interpretation services will also be made available to all those who need them.

In addition, the new tower pavilion is joined to the existing hospital building on every floor but one, allowing convenient access from inpatient to outpatient services within each specialty.  For example, the inpatient Obstetrics and Women’s Services units are connected to the outpatient clinic for OB/GYN services.

The modernization project also included a new cardiac catheterization suite and a new outpatient diagnostic center for Coney Island Hospital.  The cardiac catheterization suite was completed in November of 2003 and cost $3 million.  The outpatient diagnostic center was completed in September of 2002 and cost approximately $3 million.

"Without the Mayor's strong support and the financial backing of the City, the continued rebuilding of our public hospital system would not be possible,” said HHC Acting President Alan D. Aviles. “Today's ribbon-cutting is another milestone toward assuring that our state of the art care is rendered in the modern therapeutic facilities that patients and staff alike deserve.”

“Coney Island Hospital has been Southern Brooklyn’s ‘family doctor’ for over 95 years.” said Peter N. Wolf, Acting Senior Vice President of the Southern Brooklyn and Staten Island Health Network and Acting Executive Director of Coney Island Hospital. “Our dedicated staff has looked forward to this day for a long time. Now they can provide care to their patients in the most modern healthcare facility in Brooklyn.”

The new tower will feature artwork by local Coney Island artist Jeffrey Berman, who has achieved national recognition for his innovative combination of digital photography, computer graphics and watercolor painting. He has provided the hospital with over 40 images of the people and places that epitomize Southern Brooklyn. 

Coney Island Hospital began as a first aid station on the Coney Island Beach in the 1890s. As the year round population of the area grew, permanent buildings were erected on the present site in 1909. The current hospital was built in 1954.  Coney Island Hospital has been recognized nationally for patient safety. In 2004, the National Association of Public Hospitals awarded the hospital the prestigious “Safety Net Award” for its patient safety initiatives in the Emergency Department.  In April of this year, Coney Island was one of three HHC hospitals that were listed among the nation’s “50 Exceptional Hospitals for Patient Safety” by the Leapfrog Group of healthcare and industry leaders.

HHC hospitals serve more than 1.2 million New Yorkers each year; 450,000 of them are uninsured.  Over the last three years, all of the 11 HHC hospitals have undergone rigorous review by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations—the independent body responsible for monitoring hospital compliance with professional standards. HHC hospitals have received some of the highest scores ever earned by any hospitals, public or private, in New York City.