By ALFREDO ALVARADO

With newly renovated brownstones and several chain stores like Old Navy, HMV and Starbucks moving into the neighborhood, anyone walking the main commercial strip on 125 St. can see the signs of a revitalized Harlem. Perhaps less obvious but arguably more vital for residents is the extensive makeover underway at Harlem Hospital Center. The renovation plans received a major boost when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg recently announced that the budget for the fiscal year beginning in July would include $225.5 million for the upgrade.

“Harlem Hospital will be among the most technologically advanced hospitals — public or private — in the city,” announced the mayor April 21 at a news conference. “The modernization project will allow for growth and change to meet the community’s diverse medical needs, and most importantly, Harlem Hospital’s proud tradition of outstanding health care will be upheld and enhanced.”

New buildings coming
Service Aide and Local 420 member Bobby Perry was born in Harlem Hospital and has worked at Lincoln and Metropolitan. He thinks the renovation and expansion plans will make Harlem residents take notice.

“It will make the people in the community want to come here,” said Mr. Perry, who enjoys working in his neighborhood hospital. “It makes me feel good when I clean up a room and the patients have a nice clean place to get better in.” A neighborhood fixture since it was founded in 1887, the Health and Hospitals Corp. facility currently includes seven buildings spanning two square blocks from 135th Street and Lenox Avenue to 137th Street and Fifth Avenue. With the influx of funds, the hospital will demolish three obsolete buildings and expand the hospital by 20,000 square feet, build 150,000 square feet of new space and renovate 183,000 square feet of existing space.

A new Patient Pavilion will be built on Lenox between 136th and 137th streets. It will house the hospital’s new Emergency Department, which will have separate walk-in and ambulance entrances, state-of-the-art critical care and diagnostic units and fully-equipped operating rooms. The addition of the new Patient Pavilion will connect the Martin Luther King Pavilion and the Ron L. Brown Pavilion, creating one large building complex for the hospital.

“The changes at Harlem will integrate inpatient, emergency room and outpatient services in a manner that is consistent with HHC’s priority of patient-centered care,” said HHC President Dr. Benjamin Chu. “HHC continues to embrace its mission to provide high quality health care to all New Yorkers. The new modern Harlem Hospital will be equipped to meet the growing needs of the Harlem community.”

The modernization plan will also improve the Medical Surgical and Inpatient Unit in the existing Martin Luther King Pavilion, connect the outpatient clinics with such services as radiology and laboratories, and bring maternal and newborn services onto one floor.

Patient Care Associate Constance Bailey, a member of Local 420, is also looking forward to the changes on the horizon at Harlem. “With more patients coming here, we will have an opportunity to use more of our skills,” she said. As a PCA, Ms. Bailey works in the delivery room where she assists doctors and nurses, draws blood, takes vital signs and administers EKGs.

The hospital recently completed the final phase of renovations to its Labor and Delivery Unit and now features five spacious, family-centered birthing suites complete with full kitchens, flat-screen televisions with Internet access, cozy sofa beds and private bathrooms with whirlpool tubs. Another five suites are used as waiting and examination rooms.

Plans are also underway to renovate and enlarge Jacobi Medical Center. The plan for the Bronx hospital includes a new nine-story tower offering cutting-edge technology, expansion of specialty services, and a new emergency trauma/center. The upgraded Jacobi will also include a new Emergency Dept., one-and-a-half times as large as the old one. The new department will include 10 operating rooms and new intensive care units. Every year Jacobi Hospital treats nearly 100,000 emergency room cases and its outpatient clinics see nearly 390,000 patients.

For decades, previous city administrations have attacked the credibility of city hospitals and endangered the health of the communities they serve by attempting to shut them down or hand them to the private sector. Today however, public institutions — like Harlem and Jacobi — offer the finest care of any hospitals in the nation. And union members have helped make the difference.

“Our locals provide these forward-looking institutions with the single most important component of top-quality hospital treatment,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, “dedicated and caring employees.”