LIJ Ranks 2nd Citywide For Number Of Coronavirus Patients: Report

NEW HYDE PARK, NY — Long Island Jewish Medical Center had among the most COVID-19 patients of any New York City hospital during the first months of the pandemic, according to a new report citing state data.

The Northwell Health hospital, which straddles the Queens-Nassau County border, had 2,530 coronavirus-related hospitalizations from March through mid-June, according to state figures obtained by THE CITY.

LIJ Medical Center was second only to Montefiore Medical Center, which had 3,353 such hospitalizations in the same timeframe, THE CITY reported.

Dr. Richard Schwarz, the medical director at LIJ Medical Center, told THE CITY that the hospital typically admits patients who need to be transferred from other Northwell facilities.

During the pandemic's peak in the spring, Northwell officials moved patients from LIJ Forest Hills and LIJ Valley Stream to its other locations across the city and Long Island, including LIJ Medical Center, according to a Northwell spokesperson and previous Patch news reports.

LIJ has 583 beds but was treating nearly twice as many people at its peak patient load in April, Schwarz told THE CITY. That eventually prompted Northwell to transfer some patients elsewhere.

“As we became inundated, we were able to take fewer and fewer of their patients so they wind up going as far as Lenox Hill in one direction and Peconic in the other direction,” Schwarz told THE CITY.

LIJ has a capacity of 48 in its intensive care unit and typically sees no more than 15 to 20 patients at a time on ventilators, according to Northwell spokesperson Diane O'Donnell.

During the pandemic, LIJ hit a peak of 147 patients on ventilators, which have played a critical role in health care workers' treatment of seriously ill COVID-19 patients.

The hospital also saw an "unprecedented need" for dialysis that left the hospital's staff and equipment stretched thin, O'Donnell said.

The statistics obtained by THE CITY from Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration show that private hospitals like LIJ took on the vast majority of the nearly 60,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19 through mid-June.

Private hospitals treated 84 percent of the city's coronavirus patients, THE CITY reported.

That has taken a toll on the finances of hospitals like LIJ — where officials anticipate “a rather sizable loss” by the end of the year, executive director Michael Goldberg told THE CITY — and could affect their ability to handle a second wave of COVID-19 patients.