PBMC celebrates completion of expanded emergency room and trauma center

Peconic Bay Medical Center officials celebrated the completion of the Riverhead hospital’s expanded emergency department and trauma center Thursday with a ribbon cutting ceremony. 

“This expansion transcends infrastructure and ceremonial ribbons,” said Amy Loeb, the hospital’s executive director. “It symbolizes our steadfast dedication to extending a lifeline to those in distress, ensuring that our community has access to timely and compassionate care during critical moments — moments that people never forget, life saving moments.”

The hospital is waiting for its final approvals from the New York State Department of Health to open the expanded emergency room, Loeb said. It should be open within a few weeks, she said.

The 6,600-square-foot expansion increases the hospital’s emergency department space by 75% and includes a critical care and trauma unit, Loeb said. The expansion enables the hospital to have two separate areas in their emergency department — one dedicated to life-threatening conditions and one dedicated to less serious conditions, according to hospital officials. 

“The need to transfer patients is shrinking and that will continue thanks to this foundational project,” Loeb said. “And achieving these aspirations I firmly believe that three components are essential: a supportive health system, a united community and a world class team. Thankfully, we are blessed to possess all three.”

MORE COVERAGE: PBMC unveils ambitious $92 million plan for expansion of emergency department and Center for Women and Infants

The expansion was made possible by a $5 million “leadership gift” from Thomas Poole, the chairman of the Hallen Construction Company and his wife Mary Jane, Loeb said.

“When you make a gift you do it after much consultation with your family and each other,” Thomas Poole said. “It’s not an easy thing when you think that you’re making a sizable gift that takes away wealth from your family. And it does, because as I told you a few months ago, you only know what giving is when it does affect your net worth. Everything else is penny candy in relationship to that.”

Loeb and Poole recognized the local volunteer emergency medical service workers and hospital staff who were in attendance at the ceremony.

“Five weeks to go today, I had my reality tested, and guess who saved my life? You guessed it. Peconic Bay Medical Center, Stanley Katz, and so many of the people that work here,” Poole said. He was transferred from PBMC to South Shore University Hospital, where he received triple bypass and a valve replacement surgery, he said.

“I stand before you as a living example that the sun does shine the next morning,” he said.

Riverhead Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard said the hospital’s expansion is a “home run” for the town and the community.

“Peconic Bay Medical Center and Northwell Health knocked it out of the park once again,” Hubbard said. The hospital is working hard to “make sure people in the East End community, and especially in Riverhead, don’t have to go up west for quality healthcare,” Hubbard said.

The expanded emergency department is the first phase of a $92 million investment initiative to expand the hospital announced by its administration last year. Further expansion plans include the conversion of the hospital wing along Route 58, which previously housed a skilled nursing facility, into a new center for women and infants.