Healthcare was one of the biggest winners when the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation announced its community enhancement grants last week.
Of the $37 million allocated Nov. 8, over $8.5 million went to healthcare nonprofits, several years after community members protested that the L.M.D.C. was ignoring healthcare.
New York Downtown Hospital received $5 million, the largest grant to a single organization. The grant splits the money evenly between an M.R.I. and a new preventative care unit. The hospital will get the other $2.5 million it will need for the M.R.I. from the state Health Dept., said Avi Schick, chairperson of the L.M.D.C. and the state’s economic development president.
“We’re all smiles,” said Jeffrey Menkes, president and C.E.O. of Downtown Hospital. “This is a tremendous boost in benefit to the hospital.”
The M.R.I., arriving in 2008, will be the first one available to the public Downtown. It will improve diagnoses for patients who need orthopedic work, Menkes said.
The preventative care center, which will open in 2009, is something Menkes wants to do “sooner rather than later.”
At the grant announcement, Menkes focused on the benefits of preventative care for Chinatown.
For example, 15 percent of the Asian population of New York City has a chronic Hepatitis-B infection, which leads to liver cancer, Menkes said. Early identification would benefit patients and reduce the cost of care.
“We are the backbone facility for the Chinese community,” he said.
The L.M.D.C. also targeted Chinatown health with a $1 million grant to the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center. The money will provide training for frontline healthcare workers, many of whom are bilingual and grew up in Chinatown.
The training for the 150 receptionists, medical assistants and outreach workers will include computer skills, medical terminology and customer service.
“Health will be impacted indirectly,” said Regina Lee, chief development officer at the health center. “A better-trained staff means better healthcare.”
Lee was glad to see the L.M.D.C. fund several Chinatown nonprofits.
“There was initially…a lot of focus on the Wall St. area, the lower tip of Manhattan, and less focus on the Chinatown area,” Lee said. But in the last couple years, the L.M.D.C. and other organizations have shown that “they were responsive to the needs in Chinatown,” she said.
The healthcare focus is also something new for the L.M.D.C. Since 9/11, activists have criticized the L.M.D.C. for not devoting enough attention to residents’ needs.
Beyond Ground Zero, a coalition of nonprofit organizations, was and remains among the most outspoken critics of the L.M.D.C.
“Our community was totally up in arms, totally outraged at the non-responsiveness, the neglect of our community, the resources going everywhere but to people affected by aftermath,” said Jei Fong, an organizer with Beyond Ground Zero.
Beyond Ground Zero received a $750,000 grant for outreach to low-income people whose health was affected by 9/11. She said she was happy to receive the grant but it’s clearly not enough.
Julie Menin, chairperson of Community Board 1, is a self-described “staunch and frequent critic” of the L.M.D.C.’s track record on health issues, but she noted the progress that the grants represent.
Menkes, of Downtown Hospital, thought the L.M.D.C. had not addressed healthcare in previous grants, but “I’m not here to critique,” he said. “I’m just very happy — I’m thrilled.”
Gouverneur Healthcare Services on the Lower East Side also received a large grant.
Gouverneur will receive up to $1.5 million for a new health center for women and children, part of a general modernization of the entire facility.
“[The center] will be more conducive to a higher comfort level for our patients,” said Gillian Fein, director of marketing and development. For example, patients waiting for a mammogram will have a separate, private space to wait.
The 30,000-square-foot center will include 50 fully equipped treatment rooms, several group and counseling rooms, laboratories and a kitchen for nutrition classes.
The renovation of the entire hospital will take four to six years after groundbreaking this winter, and the new center will open sometime in that window, Fein said.
Gouverneur recently launched an expansion of Bellevue Hospital Center’s program for Lower Manhattan residents and workers affected by 9/11.
“We were hit hard by 9/11,” Fein said. “A lot of people in the Lower East Side were affected by 9/11, and a lot of people didn’t qualify under rescue worker programs.”
Downtown Hospital, the first responder to Lower Manhattan emergencies, has also expanded its services since 9/11.
The hospital’s brand-new 28,000-square-foot emergency department has 19 decontamination heads, which Menkes hopes never to use.
“We’re here,” Menkes said. “We’re ready.”
— Julie Shapiro
