Long Beach residents will now have a local medical facility where they can see specialists and get advanced health care.
Mount Sinai Doctors Long Beach is a 15,000-square-foot medical pavilion located right on East Bay Drive down the block from the Long Beach freestanding emergency department.
Officials say the new facility is not considered a hospital, but an ambulatory space that will provide special service to the people of the barrier island.
"What we hope this will do is allow most people to get the majority of their care here and hopefully they won't need a hospital," says president of Mount Sinai South Nassau Dr. Adhi Sharma.
Sharma says patients can come to the facility to see cardiologists, urologists, gastroenterologists and pain specialists. There are 15 exam rooms where you can X-rays and ultrasounds. Patients can also get blood drawn in the same building.
Long Beach Hospital was destroyed following Superstorm Sandy, which left residents there without a hospital. People say there were hoping for another hospital since the closest one is five miles away in Oceanside, which could take 20 minutes to get to.
"There's nothing here, so we got this," says Marie Sgarlato, of Long Beach. "So, you would have to go all the way out to Mount Sinai in Oceanside, so we need this."
The new facility will see its first patients on Tuesday with an official ribbon-cutting on Wednesday.
The news $35 million medical pavilion was built with FEMA money and constructed nine feet above sea level to account for potential future storms.
