Riverhead Town Supervisor backs PBMC trauma care expansion
Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter is voicing strong support for a $60 million expansion plan for Peconic Bay Medical Center’s trauma and intensive care unit.
“They are well on their way to being a regional medical center,” Mr. Walter said in an interview Monday after meeting with PBMC president and CEO Andy Mitchell.
Mr. Walter described the expansion plan as an “ambitious” proposal that would be a “wonderful” improvement for the town and the surrounding area.
PBMC, which is located on Roanoke Avenue in Riverhead, would also become the first designated trauma center on the North Fork, he added.
The current plan includes building a three-story “critical care tower” on its property, doubling the size of its emergency room and adding a helipad to the roof. Plans for a cardiac catheterization center and new intensive care ward are also included in the proposal.
Mr. Walter said the town would do all it could to fast-track the hospital’s proposal, which is Riverhead’s largest employer.
“It would be a crime for me and for the town not to push this forward as quickly as possible for the cardiac catheterization component,” he said. “That’s life or death for somebody’s who’s having a heart attack … This project saves lives.”
Mr. Walter said the hospital’s architects and engineers were given “quite the homework assignment” to determine which zoning variances they’d need to have the plan approved.
“He’s got an ambitious site plan and an ambitious approval schedule,” Mr. Walter said. “This is a wonderful thing for the Town of Riverhead.”
While site plans for the project have yet to be submitted, Mr. Mitchell has said he hopes to begin construction in September.
Photo: Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead. (Credit: Carrie Miller, file)
