One Brooklyn Health (OBH) on Wednesday, April 14 celebrated the re-opening of its newly renovated Pierre Toussaint Family Health Center on Wednesday, April 14 at 1110 Eastern Parkway and Utica Avenue, Brooklyn.
“One Brooklyn Health is excited to provide the residents of Central Brooklyn a state-of-the-art health care center,” LaRay Brown, chief executive officer of One Brooklyn Health, told Caribbean Life. “The Pierre Toussaint Health Care Center has been fully renovated and expanded to provide more than 28,000 urgent care, primary care and specialty care visits.”
Brown said this project was funded with New York State capital funding through the “Health Care Facility Transformation: Kings County Project” and is one of the 30 new ambulatory care centers that One Brooklyn will develop as part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Vital Brooklyn Initiative.
Enid Dillard — director of marketing and public affairs at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, which is part of the OBH network — said the much-anticipated event included a facility tour of the 10,000-square-feet center and an overview of services provided that “respond to the unique health care needs of the community.”
She said OBH was awarded a multi-year grant of $664 million dollars to renovate this center; develop a Medical Village on the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center campus; and establish or expand new community-based ambulatory care centers, many of which will be through partnerships with Federally Qualified Health Centers.
In addition, Dillard said the grant will aid in renovating inpatient and emergency services areas, implementing an electronic health record to ensure coordination of patients’ care, and making critically-needed improvements to the infrastructure of the safety net hospital system’s buildings/facilities.
“One Brooklyn Health was established to preserve and enhance healthcare services in the communities of Central Brooklyn,” Dillard said.
She said the health care system includes Brookdale Hospital Medical Center, Interfaith Medical Center, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, Rutland Nursing Home, Schulman & Schachne Institute for Nursing & Rehabilitation and several ambulatory care centers, including the Pierre Toussaint Family Health Center.
Dillard said the Health Care Facility Transformation: Kings County Project was established by New York State “to strengthen and protect continued access to health care services in communities in which a high number of residents are Medicaid enrollees or uninsured, and residents have experienced significant health disparities and service needs compared to other communities in Brooklyn.”
