Leadership from Episcopal Health Services (EHS) and local elected officials came together to mark the opening of a new labor and delivery suite with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Thursday, July 31, at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital, located at 327 Beach 19th St. in Far Rockaway.
Among those on hand to celebrate the official opening of this suite were Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, State Senator James Sanders, Rep. Gregory Meeks, Assemblymember Stacey Pheffer Amato, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, EHS CEO Dr. Donald T. Morrish, EHS Executive Vice President and COO Karen Paige, EHS OB-GYN Chair Dr. Jacqueline Marecheau and EHS Board of Trustees Chair Bishop Lawrence Provenzano.
During the ceremony, Dr. Morrish expressed his gratitude to the Queens elected officials on hand for providing or helping to secure funding for this $12 million project. He also noted that plenty of community members and EHS team members across the Rockaway Peninsula were generous enough to donate money for this cause.
“Many people opened their wallets during galas and golf events, providing gifts in kind,” Dr. Morrish said. “Our team members went to their paychecks and gave us money because they had confidence in Episcopal Health Services to provide exceptional health care to the peninsula.”
The project took just over one year of construction. The labor and delivery suite features six spacious private rooms, which were designed to make expecting mothers and newborn children as comfortable as possible. Each room is equipped with a pull-out couch, desk space and a spa-inspired bathroom.
“Today, for me, is a wonderful celebration and fulfillment of a dream from my first day chairing the board, when the leadership told me, ‘Bishop, we have to get rid of labor and delivery. It’s too litigious,'” Bishop Provenzano said. “My response was what were called in those days bad births came because of poor prenatal care and facilities that needed to be updated. The solution is what we’re doing today.”
Approximately 50 team members are expected to be working on the floor of the suite. There will also be a nurse monitoring station to help the nurses keep track of the vitals of each patient while also granting them access to each room.
“This space is a sanctuary. This space is a love letter to the community,” Dr. Marecheau said. “it is very deep and personal to me. I had preeclampsia and postpartum depression, and so for me, I empathize with all the women in this community. I think that this community and the surrounding community deserves a beautiful space.”
Richards said that making sure the hospital receives funding to improve and add upgrades is very important to him. He noted that the Rockaway Peninsula had not been getting as much investment for many years in the past, potentially at least in part due to the high population of minorities and those with smaller incomes compared to other parts of the city.
“Today, I can finally say that this is a labor of love for everyone. This has really been in the making for years,” Richards said. “And I just want to add that this is more than just about an addition to the hospital or even new additions to families. This is about correcting the decades of disinvestment and generations of systemic racism in this community. This is about reversing some of the most shocking health care disparities that the Rockaway Peninsula has endured for far too long.”
Richards and Katz talked about how a previous tour of St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in 2017, when Richards was a Council Member and Katz the Borough President, opened their eyes to just how much the facility’s birthing center was in need of improvements. Plans were then made to raise funds to build the new state-of-the-art labor and delivery suite.
“[Richards and I] planted the seed money,” Katz said. “But you can’t do anything after the seed money without Congressman Meeks, Senator Sanders and our great Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato, or a Borough President [in Richards] that continues the work that you started and then expands on and makes it greater and better. So I thank everyone here for this.”
