ASTORIA — Mount Sinai Queens is growing.
The hospital opened a new emergency department to patients last week, the first phase in a $175 million expansion that broke ground three years ago.
The expansion — which elected officials say is essential to meet the healthcare needs of western Queens' growing population — comes as the Mount Sinai network plans to close another of its facilities, Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan, and open a number of smaller facilities to replace it.
The new Stavros Niarchos Foundation Emergency Department of Mount Sinai Queens is located on the corner of Crescent Street and 30th Road and is nearly five times the size of the hospital's former emergency room.
It features a larger, glass-enclosed waiting room, a cardiac and critical care resuscitation room, bariatric- and dialysis-capable rooms, and a separate space for children, the hospital said. The new ER has WiFi as well as bedside televisions for each patient.
It's the first portion of the hospital's new six-story expansion to open, a project that's been underway since 2013 and is expected to wrap up this year.
Future services at the expanded site will include a new outpatient imaging center, a multi-specialty physician practice, new and larger operating rooms as well as a radiology suite, according to the hospital.
More than 50,000 patients visited the emergency department at Mount Sinai Queens last year alone, the hospital said.
