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FOR RELEASE: Immediate, Tuesday, November 27, 2001

New Bed Tower Opens at Kings County Hospital Center

DASNYs 1st Major Project at NYC Public Hospital

$86 million inpatient bed tower at Kings County Hospital Center.

BROOKLYN Mayor Rudolph W. Guiliani was the keynote speaker today at a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the new $86 million inpatient bed tower at Kings County Hospital Center.

The 338-bed tower is the first phase of an ambitious four-phase, 12-year plan to modernize Kings County Hospital Center. The Dormitory Authority supervised construction of the tower on behalf of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, a public benefit corporation that operates the Citys public hospitals.

This modern and efficient new hospital will provide superior services to the Brooklyn community in the 21st century, Mayor Giuliani said. The rebuilding of Kings County Hospital is evidence of HHCs ability to achieve major modernizations projects ahead of schedule and within budget.

From our perspective, said Richard T. Roberts, Chairman of HHCs Board of Directors, the successful completion of this project is particularly gratifying, because it means that our patients will continue to have access to the high-quality health care on which they have come to rely.

The new patient bed tower is state of the art. Everything about it reflects the newest in technology and hospital design from the robotic pharmacy in the basement, to the private and semi-private patient bedrooms, to the use of natural light as much as possible. Within its 250,000 square feet, the tower has six floors to house all the general care beds on the hospital campus, plus two more floors for pediatric services, the obstetrical unit, the neonatal intensive care unit and all mechanical systems. Each floor is connected to Building C with 90-foot-long pedestrian bridges.

This is the new HHC, said HHC President Luis R. Marcos, M.D. We are spending $1.1 billion to modernize our hospitals and clinics. As opposed to the early 1990s, when some of our hospitals failed accreditation standards, today all our hospitals have full three-year JCAHO accreditation with scores averaging 94, while the national average is 89. And our patients tell us that we are better than ever.

Built in 1831 as a public infirmary, the hospital expanded rapidly to provide a full spectrum of health services. By the 1980s, however, the hospital urgently required renovation. Attempts to provide the improvements foundered until 1997, when the Guiliani Administration announced its decision to rebuild this crucial facility. HHC entered into an agreement with the Dormitory Authority to have it provide construction project management services for its capital plan.

For 30 years, the people of Brooklyn had been waiting for someone to do something to improve the outdated facilities at Kings County Hospital, noted Dormitory Authority Executive Director Thomas J. Murphy. The average age of the buildings here was over 65 years old. This project means a great deal to all of us at the Dormitory Authority, as we mark the completion of our first major collaboration with HHC. I am confident that we will continue our success as we move into Phase 2 of the Kings County Hospital Center program. Managing Director of Construction Douglas M. Van Vleck, Program Director Dennis Falvey, Project Manager Gary Guttman and Field Representative Benjamin Hernandez led the DASNY project team.

The private and semi-private rooms were designed to maximize patient comfort and provide a comfortable and personalized environment, said Jean Leon, Executive Director of Kings County Hospital Center. The new building and other major campus improvements demonstrate our commitment to provide our patients with access to the best quality health care.

Other major projects under way in the Dormitory Authoritys HHC program are: