New York Introduces New Hurricane-Proof Hospital

Residents of South Brooklyn will soon have a new $923 million public hospital that will elevate the healthcare of its patients. 

The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Hospital is designed to be flood proof – a crucial decision as the Coney Island Hospital was destroyed during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. According to The New York Times, seawater poured into the emergency room and at least 370 patients were evacuated.  

The new hospital was built in the same location as the previous building. Hospital leaders managed to convince the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that constructing a new building would cost nearly the same as repairing the old one. The New York Times report that FEMA gave the city’s public hospital system $1 billion to build a new facility.  

The building reportedly has four-foot-tall barrier walls surrounding most of the campus. Meanwhile, two large generators occupy the building’s fifth floor. The hospital also has a glass curtain wall that is resistant to hurricane damage and is able to withstand “large and small missile impact,” The New York Times reports. The new hospital will also feature: 

• A surgical suite comprised of eight state-of-the-art operating rooms 
• Robotic surgery 
• An endoscopy suite 
• Inpatient dialysis 
• 80 private medical-surgical beds 
• 60 behavioral health beds with panoramic views of Brooklyn and the New York City skyline 
• Diagnostic and interventional radiology 
• Clinical laboratories 

Mackenna Moralez is the associate editor of the facilities market.