STUYVESANT TOWN — Stuyvesant Town will get its own healthcare center as part of Mount Sinai's new network of facilities being developed to replace Beth Israel, according to hospital officials.
The new center, which will offer pediatric and primary care along with a rotating list of specialty services, will be based at 518-520 East 20th St., with construction expected to wrap up in fall 2017, according to Mount Sinai Health System representatives.
The office will accept walk-ins as well as appointments, according to Jeremy Boals, who was recently tapped as president of the Mount Sinai Downtown Network.
Mount Sinai will develop the list of specialty services after consulting with local residents and stakeholders about which areas of care will best serve Stuy Town and the surrounding area, Boals said.
"We are pleased to be opening the new Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village practice, increasing convenience and accessibility for patients close to home," he said in a statement.
"As this project progresses, we will work with elected officials and community members to ensure we will provide the most needed primary and specialty care services."
The office will be part of the new Mount Sinai Downtown Network, a constellation of urgent-care centers, ambulatory facilities and doctors’ offices that is the company’s downsized replacement for Beth Israel, which is set to close over the next four years.
Mount Sinai plans to open a new Beth Israel on 14th Street that will be dramatically smaller than the old facility.
Across its network, the number of inpatient beds will be a fraction of those currently available at Beth Israel, leading to concerns from some residents and their elected representatives that lower Manhattan could suffer from a shortage of coverage.
Although just half of Beth Israel’s 799 inpatient beds are filled on an average day, according to hospital officials, the new network will have just 220 beds.
But according to Boals and outgoing Beth Israel President Susan Somerville, who spoke at a community meeting on the issue in October, advances in rehabilitation care and surgical techniques make inpatient hospitalization less necessary than in the past.
The emergency room at the new Beth Israel hospital will be able to meet the immediate needs of acutely sick patients coming in with heart attacks and strokes, and the network’s ambulatory facilities will be able to provide for outpatient treatment, according to Somerville.
“This is the healthcare of the future,” Somerville said at the time.
