With the recent unveiling of its new rehabilitation treatment facility, Margaret Tietz Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Jamaica transitioned from “1970s paisley and polka dots to 2009,” with an airy, sunlit space, hardwood floors and state-of-the-art technology, said Tietz Executive Director Gerald Hart.
At the treatment center’s May 14 grand opening, elected officials sung the new facility’s praises, but a patient who was treated last year and recently returned after another injury struck the most favorable chord. Sue Molliver heralded the new facility as “so much larger, so cheerful, so bright” and extolled the professionals who, she said, treated her “with love, kindness and tender loving care.”
“You don’t feel like you’re in rehab,” Molliver said of the new treatment center. “You feel like you’re in a resort.”
Hart, who urged elected officials in attendance – including State Senators Frank Padavan and Toby Stavisky and Councilmember James Gennaro – to stave off health care budget cuts, admitted that “It takes an army” to run Margaret Tietz so well.
It might be said, then, that Dannick Boutin, Tietz’s Director of Rehabilitation, is a general in that army. Boutin is quick to admit, however, that the center’s new technology makes his and other employees’ jobs much easier.
Boutin showed off a new balance machine – the facility’s most high tech apparatus, until its virtual reality rehab system arrives in a few weeks – that analyzes a patient’s stability and helps determine his or her risk of falling. Staffers like Boutin use the data churned out by the machine to customize a patient’s course of rehab.
Michael Fassler, the President and CEO of the Beth Abraham Family of Health Services, of which Margaret Tietz is an affiliate, said the renovated treatment center is just “the first step” in the renovation of the entire facility.
Hart echoed Fassler in celebrating the fresh new space, which, he said, represents Tietz’s interest in feng shui and aesthetics. But, Hart added that, more importantly, the renovation of the center signifies Margaret Tietz’s commitment to patient recovery.
“We get people here, we get them healthy and we get them home,” he said.
