After years of advocacy, Rockaway residents could finally get a trauma center on the peninsula.
Supporters of the plan say the closest hospitals equipped to treat people with the most serious injuries — such as from car accidents or shootings — are still too far away, putting lives at risk. But an infusion of funding in the city’s recently passed budget marks City Hall’s first tangible commitment to seeing a new Rockaway hospital open in the next few years.
Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council included $50 million for the facility in the budget passed last week. But an additional investment will likely be needed to get the trauma center over the finish line.
City Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers, who represents Far Rockaway and surrounding neighborhoods, said last month that she was pushing for $150 million to $200 million for the center in the city budget.
Asked about funding levels, Julian Martin, the policy and budget director for Brooks-Powers, said the mayor has “made a full commitment to working together to see the trauma center through.”
“We are going to make sure this trauma facility is done,” Adams said when he announced he had reached a budget deal with the Council last week. “I will be meeting with Gov. [Kathy] Hochul, along with the speaker and Majority Whip Brooks-Powers in the near future so we can deliver health care access to the people of Rockaway Peninsula.”
Funding for the center in the city budget was still uncertain last month, when Brooks-Powers and other advocates ramped up their campaign. A task force the councilmember co-chaired on the trauma center released a report in mid-June saying the facility was “urgently needed.”
The publication was accompanied by a press conference where a coalition of elected officials and union leaders urged Adams to fund the center. Speakers lamented the death of NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller, who was shot in Far Rockaway in March and taken 9 miles away to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center.
Brooks-Powers said the city budget puts residents “one step closer to securing a trauma center for Far Rockaway.”
In addition to pinning down additional funding, city officials will also need to figure out which health system will run the new trauma center. The operator will then need to get state approval to open the facility, in addition to securing real estate and building it out.
Finishing the project could take three to five years, according to Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of NYC Health and Hospitals, who co-chaired the task force on the proposed trauma center alongside Brooks-Powers. He said last month that NYC Health and Hospitals could run the facility, but other local health systems were also potential candidates.
In the meantime, some Rockaway residents are celebrating that they’re a little closer to making the center a reality.
“I’m elated to learn that the mayor has agreed to set aside funds for the Far Rockaway trauma center in the budget,” said the Rev. Les Mullings, senior pastor at the Far Rockaway Community Church of the Nazarene, who also sat on the task force. “This initiative will be life changing for so many in the Rockaway community.”
More than 120,000 New Yorkers currently live in the communities on the Rockaway Peninsula, and advocates for the trauma center say that population is projected to grow, thanks to new development.