$50,000 Grant from the Ong Family Foundation Funded Renovation
12/18/2007
New York, NY, December 18, 2007 -- St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan has completed renovations on a new waiting area for its Chinese inpatient unit. The hospital formally dedicated the Chinese Unit Family Visitation Area on Coleman 15 East during a ceremony on December 18 at 2 pm.
The new waiting room was funded by a multi-year $50,000 grant from The Ong Family Foundation, and Mr. Nelson Louis, executive officer of the Ong Family Foundation, will be attending the dedication ceremony.
'We are extremely grateful to the Ong Family Foundation for their generous past and present support of our programs that serve the Chinese community,' said St. Vincent's CEO Henry Amoroso. 'The new renovations made possible by the Ong Family Foundation donation have created a more comfortable place for visitors, furthering our mission to better serve our Chinese patients and families.'
St. Vincent's is proud to have served the Chinatown community for more than 30 years. In addition to the new Chinese Family Visitation Area, the hospital's Chinese inpatient unit features bilingual staff, Chinese cuisine, acupuncture and other complementary healing services. Outside the hospital, St. Vincent's runs a number of programs servicing the Chinatown community. These include the Living at Home Program, the Chinatown Clinic, and a partnership with the Chinese American Planning Council to offer scholarships to help members of the Chinatown community pursue careers in healthcare.
The hospital is continually working to enhance its primary and secondary services to the Chinatown community. Services the hospital has added or plans to add soon include:
• Language interpreter services in the emergency department and throughout the hospital.
• Chinese Speaking Hospitalists whose primary focus is to provide medical care to hospitalized patients and to maintain the ongoing involvement of the patient's primary care physician throughout the hospitalization.
• 24 hour Chinese speaking telephone hotline to help to navigate the healthcare system (1-800-994-7018)
• Inpatient unit to include Chinese physicians, Chinese-speaking staff, an Asian menu and ambiance and acupuncture for pain management;
• Bilingual Chinese volunteers who visit inpatient daily
• Five Chinese Satellite Television Stations including The Jade Channel - East, The Jade Channel - West, TVBS, The Chinese Movie Channel and CCTV-4, and Chinese newspapers;
• Free van service between Chinatown and the hospital on a regular daily schedule;
• Menus in Chinese offering a selection of Chinese food choices, including congee and fresh meals prepared in a wok in our own kitchen;
• Care delivered to elderly, monolingual, homebound Chinese people in their own homes through the Living at Home Program;
• St. Vincent's employs some 240 Chinese staff and has 23 Chinese residents in its various residency training programs;
• Information on programs and services available in Chinese on hospital website at www.svcmc.org;
• Some 178 Chinese physicians, both employed and voluntary, are affiliated with the hospital. They serve in the areas of anesthesiology, cardiology, emergency medicine, endocrinology, family practice, gastroenterology, infectious diseases, internal medicine, nephrology, neurology, nuclear medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, oncology, pediatrics, psychiatry, pulmonary diseases, radiation oncology and rheumatology as well as in general surgery and surgical subspecialties.
St. Vincent's Director of Asian Services, Frances Wong is overseeing a number of initiatives aimed at enhancing services to the Chinese community. For questions, comments, or employment opportunities, please call Ms. Wong at (917) 770-3981.
About Saint Vincent's
Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers (Saint Vincent's) is anchored by St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, an academic medical center located in Greenwich Village and the only emergency room on the Westside of Manhattan from Midtown to Tribeca, St. Vincent's Westchester, a behavioral health hospital in Westchester County, and continuing care services that include two skilled nursing facilities in Brooklyn, another on Staten Island, a hospice, and a home health agency serving the Metropolitan New York area. Its behavioral health services also provide supportive housing programs for people with mental illness throughout the Metropolitan area. Saint Vincent's is the designated provider for the New York and New Jersey region of the US Family Health Plan sponsored by the US Department of Defense.
Saint Vincent's serves as the academic medical center of New York Medical College in New York City. The healthcare organization is sponsored by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Brooklyn and the president of the Sisters of Charity of New York.
