BY ALINE REYNOLDS | New York’s largest municipal freestanding healthcare clinic, situated on the Lower East Side, is about to get even larger.
Gouverneur Healthcare Services is gutting its ambulatory care center and nursing home in its current location at 227 Madison Street and expanding its services in a new, adjacent building with the goal of enhancing treatment and better accommodating Lower Manhattan’s growing senior population.
Since the center was originally designed as a hospital back in the late 1960s, it wasn’t structurally prepared to meet the demands of such a large outpatient facility, according to Sanford Operowsky, Gouverneur’s associate executive director. As a result, its services, he said, have been cramped to the point that Gouveneur staff has had to convert office space into additional exam rooms for patients.
“Being able to do these renovations and expansions enables us to implement the latest healthcare models and realign our services to what the community needs,” said Operowsky.
The facility’s nursing department will grow from 210 to 295 beds and house 40 beds per floor, rather than 60, to give patients more space and privacy. Its broadened ambulatory department will be able to perform surgeries, colonoscopies, CAT scans, and provide acute care to patients that don’t require hospitalization.
“We’ll be able to treat people who are much sicker than we do now and admit clientele that’s much more likely to return home,” said William Bateman, director of medical and professional affairs at Gouverneur.
The nursing home, in other words, will cater more to seniors who are rehabilitating or recovering from illnesses or injuries rather than those who are permanently disabled or would like to age in place, Bateman explained.
“We’re focusing more on taking people who we can get home, as opposed to people whose conditions are such that they’ll never be able to return to independent living,” said Bateman.
Eventually, the facility plans to rent out part of the new space to an outside provider that would open a dialysis center.
In designing the new space, staff strove to create a cozy environment by adding fireplaces, fish tanks and other resident- and patient-friendly amenities, in addition to having natural light flow into wider, more navigable hallways and common rooms. All nursing home residents will have suites with private bedrooms, and they’ll either share bathrooms with another resident or have their own.
“It’s going to provide a brighter, more cheerful space to come to get care in,” assured Bateman. “We do expect we’ll be able to utilize space effectively, in a matter that decreases the amount of time people have to wait [to receive care].”
The space modifications represent a “culture” change in municipal care systems in that the new-and-improved facility will simulate a private care center, according to Eugene Leung, senior project manager of the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, one of the agencies overseeing the renovations.
“This project represents a feeling by the Mayor and [the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation] that there should be no difference between the public and private system, and that everyone deserves terrific care regardless,” said Leung.
“They really wanted to divorce the image of the institutional [setting] that has kind of beset the city’s municipal system for many, many years, and wanted these people to feel like they’re in a dignified home — maybe better than what their own homes were providing,” echoed James Palace, project executive for Hunter Roberts Construction Group, Gouverneur’s construction manager.
Gouverneur has instructed Palace and his team to create a grand entrance along Madison Street, with granite steps and a spacious lobby comprised of maple wood walls and terrazzo floors. The new center will also have an auditorium used for fundraising and community events, as well as two rooftops for nursing home patients to enjoy the outdoors.
Palace’s team broke ground at the next door property in early 2009 and plans to have the new 13th floor (the first completed space) ready for patients in October. The project has proven difficult, he said, since the facility’s nursing and ambulatory services must go uninterrupted throughout the duration of the construction period.
“On paper it looked one way, but in practicality, we had to keep the facility functioning properly and meet budget issues and schedule demands that started to become pressing issues for the facility,” said Palace.
As a result, construction crews had to make adjustments to their usual procedures and schedule so as to minimize the disruption the residents and patients would experience.
“We’ve done hundreds of water and electrical shutdowns, and we try to do it at times that are least impactful to residents and the people that work there,” said Palace.
The project also entails a complete infrastructure upgrade of the existing building’s electrical, mechanical and plumbing systems, and a merging of the old and new building so they feel connected.
The team has been able to overcome these challenges, Palace said, by proactively working toward the common objective Gouverneur and his team shared: getting the expanded facility up and running as quickly as possible.
“Everyone was able to check their egos at the door, cooperate and communicate,” said Palace.
Gouverneur will host an opening ceremony on Mon., Sept. 19. The new facility will be completed in late 2013. Funding for the approximately $200 million project largely came from the capital budget of the NYC H.H.C. The center has also obtained grants through the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.
