During the health and human services committee meeting for Bronx Community Board 7 (CB7) in February, a representative from NYC Health + Hospitals/North Central Bronx (NCB) provided updates to over a dozen participants in attendance on several topics, including a citywide behavioral health project, new-look ambulances, and Botanical Garden parking for NCB staff.

 

According to Alfredo Jones, a representative from NCB, NYC Health+Hospitals, the City’s public hospital system, received a memo from Gov. Kathy Hochul requesting the provision of 253 additional behavioral health beds across City hospitals to address the behavioral and mental health needs of New Yorkers.

 

The City media outlet recently reported that Hochul’s psychiatric bed expansion initiative is on track. Jones said NCB currently has 23 behavioral health beds which are not currently in use and that the hospital expects to make them available at some point between March and April. Michelle Avila, chair of CB7’s health committee asked whether the hospital planned to expand on that number at some point in the foreseeable future, to which Jones replied, “Based on the architecture of the facility, I can only offer the 23 that we have offline.”

 

The conversation later moved to use of the Botanical Garden parking lot located at The Peter Jay Sharp Building at 401 Bedford Park Boulevard, in Bedford Park, by NCB staff. Jones said the move towards using the new parking lot sprung from safety concerns staff had expressed while using the parking lot located closest to the Mosholu Parkway 4 train station at The Peter Jay Sharp Building at 401 Bedford Park Boulevard in Bedford Park.

 

“Those concerns have forced our hospital to seek out other large parking facilities and the only other one that came up was the Botanical Gardens,” said Jones. “We implemented the shuttle service [to and from the hospital] to give a slightly higher sense of safety,” he said. Jones said some NCB staff members had dealt with “some not so pleasant experiences” involving a shelter located next door to the parking lot but added the main reason for the move was because there had been “some concerns with the landlord [of the original parking lot].”

 

He said NCB now offers a shuttle service to its staff from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Friday, with the shuttle route modeled on the existing Montefiore Medical Center shuttle service, since Montefiore’s staff also uses the Botanical Garden parking lot.

 

Another update provided by Jones was that NCB ambulances would soon be getting a new makeover. The hospital frequently transfers patients between its two campuses at NCB and Jacobi Medical Center and uses a common ambulance service. As previously reported by Norwood News, the hospitals underwent a merger which began in 2019 to streamline certain services, including ambulatory services, to make them more efficient, and to help speed up accreditation requirements at both campuses.

 

Jones said the point of the new look ambulances was to help with non-critical transportation between the two campuses. He added that the two campuses have a greater need for ambulances on demand.

 

In other more recent NCB news, as reported, doctors, nurses and ancillary and administrative staff at NCB volunteered their time on Saturday, Nov. 5, for the first of a series of Saturdays during which they provided medical check-ups and other services to asylum seeks in The Bronx, and in conjunction with insurance provider, Metro Plus. Bronx Works also provided registration and the necessary documents to help connect kids aged 2-4 with head start programs.

 

An update on a matter raised during January’s health committee meeting was provided by Avila on the ongoing rat infestation in Community District 7. “I know that Jerome Gun Hill BID is doing a Rat Academy Training,” said Avila. “I want to work with our other committee chairs to maybe do a cross-committee forum on the rat presence and what we can do as a community and neighbors to really address this.”

 

CB7 Veterans’ committee chair, Chad Royer, agreed, adding that getting the entire community involved would help to resolve the issue. “I think the biggest opportunity that we have is if we educate the community at large, including our folks who are responsible for our businesses and our buildings like supers and landlords,” he said.

 

“If we reach out to them in a way that could get them on board that would help a lot of us in ways we don’t understand,” he added.

A second follow-up point from the January meeting was on New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) reaching a tentative agreement with Montefiore after their strike action that month. The community had wanted to hear from some of the nurses themselves about the new deal. Avila said she had reached out but hadn’t received a response yet.

 

Community members were invited to raise other topics of concern towards the end of the meeting. One member was perturbed over supermarkets failing to offer brown paper bags to SNAP and WIC recipients, despite there being a requirement for them to do so.

 

Royer said he had difficulty disposing medical waste like syringes at CityMD clinics, despite signage that indicated such clinics supported proper medical disposal. He said if needles and syringes weren’t disposed of properly, they could end up in landfills and put sanitation workers at risk. Avila responded, saying she would dig deeper into the issue to explore what could be done.

 

Jones said at NCB there are red bins where needles and syringes can be disposed of appropriately. “This is a community service,” he said. “It’s not specific to the hospital and we put it so that folks have a safe place to discard.”

 

Another resident expressed confusion and concern over hospitals offering the yearly flu shot along with a possible yearly COVID booster shot. Earlier this year, the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) outlined a plan for possible yearly COVID booster shots.

 

“From what we hear public health officials saying, it looks like the COVID vaccines are going to be introduced similar to flu vaccines, so you can get one on a yearly basis,” Avila said, adding that more information on the issue would be provided at future meetings.

Robert Spencer from the Bronx District Attorney’s office announced that the office would be holding its 6th annual Bronx child safety fair on Saturday, April 15, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

 

Elsewhere, more recently, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (A.D. 81) joined with 1199SEIU care provision workers on March 21 to rally for better working conditions. He wrote, “Glad to join thousands and thousands of @1199SEIU workers today to bring an end to healthcare injustice. Our healthcare workers deserve better wages and better working conditions. Period.”

 

The next CB7 health committee meeting is set for March 23 at 6.30 p.m.

 

*Síle Moloney contributed to this story.