Walsh Ambulatory Pavilion opens in Far Rockaway

For far too long, the residents of the Rockaways have had to leave the peninsula to get ambulatory care they deserve.”

Dr. Donald Morrish

Far Rockaway welcomed a major expansion of outpatient medical services on Friday as Episcopal Health Services cut the ribbon on its new Walsh Ambulatory Pavilion, a 65,000-square-foot facility designed to bring cancer treatment, women’s health, behavioral health and other specialty care closer to patients who for years often had to leave their communities for treatment.

The new pavilion, adjacent to St. John’s Episcopal Hospital on Beach 20th Street (an extension of Central Avenue), marks one of the most significant health care investments in the region since Peninsula Hospital Center closed in 2012 and left St. John’s as the only full-service hospital on the 11-mile-long Rockaway peninsula.

For residents of the Rockaways — and for nearby Five Towns families for whom St. John’s is the closest hospital — the building represents a substantial increase in local access to advanced care.

“For far too long, the residents of the Rockaways have had to leave the peninsula to get ambulatory care they deserve,” said Dr. Donald Morrish, chief executive officer of Episcopal Health Services, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “That day ends today.”

The pavilion is named for Gerald M. Walsh, Morrish’s predecessor as EHS chief executive officer and now a board member, whose decade-long tenure helped shape the project’s planning and development.

“This is not just about a naming, it’s not just about a building,” said Lisa Chase-Hernandez, EHS vice president of marketing, in introducing Walsh. “It’s about the impact he’s left us, which is everlasting. He has been a tremendous champion of this community, of EHS and of every patient that we serve.”

Named for a leader — but built for the community

Episcopal Diocese of Long Island Bishop Lawrence C. Provenzano, who chairs the EHS board, said naming the facility after Walsh was meant not simply as a retirement tribute, but as recognition of a long-range vision for transforming health care delivery in one of New York City’s most medically underserved communities.

“When you walk through it, when you understand all that is happening in this place, you recognize that the continuation of that vision and care for the people of the Rockaways is solid, as solid as the building,” he said.

But Provenzano stressed that Friday’s celebration should not be seen as the conclusion of EHS’ work.

“This is not the endpoint of a long journey. It is midpoint,” he said.

Provenzano said the need for expanded medical services on the peninsula is only intensifying as the region’s population grows older and patients struggle with the burden of traveling long distances for specialized care.

“When people are ill, when families are vulnerable, the last thing they need is a long trip away from home just to receive treatment,” he said. “This building answers that in a very practical way.”

“No one else is providing care for this community,” Provenzano told The Jewish Star after the event. “It became very clear to me, 17 years ago, that as the old Peninsula Hospital was getting ready to close, we were it, and we had to provide not just good care but the best care possible.”

When The Jewish Star asked the bishop what in his faith drove him to pursue a mission of healing, he responded that “the Episcopal churches stand for the dignity of every human being. We care for all of G-d’s people regardless of faith background.” Their commitment is to “support the dignity of every person made in the image and likeness of G-d,” he said.

Bringing cancer care back to the peninsula

Karen Paige, EHS executive vice president and chief operating officer, detailed the array of services now housed in the pavilion: primary care, obstetrics and gynecology, behavioral health, endoscopy and, most notably, a comprehensive cancer center that includes medical oncology, radiation oncology, infusion therapy, PET-CT scanning and a linear accelerator.

“For the first time in more than a decade, residents of the Rockaway peninsula, the Five Towns and the surrounding communities now have access to best-in-class, comprehensive cancer care right here at EHS,” Paige said.

She called the project “the realization of a vision,” adding that consolidating major outpatient specialties in one modern building allows EHS to remove long-standing barriers to treatment.

“No longer do our patients and families need to travel far from home during some of the most difficult moments of their lives,” Paige said.

The return of full-service oncology care to the peninsula is particularly significant. Since the loss of prior hospital services in the area, many patients needing radiation or infusion treatments had been forced to make frequent trips into Nassau County, Brooklyn or Manhattan — a burden especially acute for elderly patients and those dependent on public transportation.

Walsh said restoring those services had been one of his core goals from the moment he arrived at EHS in 2015.

“I heard, ‘There’s no cancer care here,’” Walsh recalled. “People who need radiation need to leave the peninsula to get their care. We have brought that back right here, right at home.”

While the pavilion was conceived primarily to serve Rockaway residents, EHS officials repeatedly noted that its reach extends beyond the peninsula.

St. John’s Episcopal Hospital sits only minutes from the Nassau border, making it the closest hospital for many residents of Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Inwood, Woodmere and Hewlett — communities with large Jewish populations that to varying degrees have relied on St. John’s emergency room and maternity services.

Paige explicitly cited the Five Towns among the beneficiary communities in her remarks, underscoring that the new cancer and specialty offerings are expected to draw patients not only from Queens but from southwestern Nassau as well.

That geographic advantage was echoed by Provenzano when he noted that the institution increasingly serves as a regional access point, not merely a neighborhood hospital.

“This isn’t just a Rockaway story,” Provenzano said. “This becomes part of the larger health care network for communities immediately adjacent to us that need quality, dependable care close to home.”

Access to care where you live

Walsh, visibly emotional as he accepted the honor of having the pavilion bear his name, returned repeatedly to what he called the central principle of his nearly five decades in hospital leadership: access.

“In my 47 years of working in hospitals and health systems, the main purpose has always been access,” he said. “Access to care where you live, exceptional care every single day. Nothing is worse than when you are not well and you have to travel.”

He described the facility as the culmination of an idea first discussed more than a decade ago and said the project was always intended to create “world-class care in your backyard.”

Walsh also emphasized that, despite the new building’s technology and modernity, the institution’s mission remains rooted in service to every patient regardless of means.

“It’s a sacred trust,” he said. “Regardless of who walks through those doors, we have a commitment, we have an obligation to take care of everyone … not only with machinery and technology, but with kindness and empathy.”

Morrish struck a similar note, describing the pavilion as both a physical structure and a statement of institutional confidence.

“A hospital is built of concrete and steel,” he said. “But what it really runs on is the belief held quietly across generations that this community is worth fighting for.”

More than a ribbon cutting

Friday’s ceremony celebrated a completed building, but EHS leadership made clear they view it as part of a broader campaign to expand health infrastructure in a community long defined by limited options.

Since Peninsula Hospital’s closure in 2012, concerns about hospital overcrowding, transportation burdens and medical inequities have lingered throughout the Rockaways.

The Walsh Ambulatory Pavilion does not solve every one of those challenges, EHS officials acknowledged, but it substantially changes the treatment landscape for thousands of families.

“We are closing the gap in care,” Paige said, “and transforming how our community receives care.”

And Provenzano offered a final challenge to EHS leadership and supporters: “Let’s keep dreaming big. Let’s imagine where else we can be, where else we are to set a place that we care for G-d’s people.”

With Friday’s ribbon officially cut, Episcopal Health Services is betting that for the Rockaways — and increasingly for neighboring Five Towns patients — the next chapter of local medicine begins just across the street from St. John’s.