The healthy hustle and life-saving bustle are back at what was once Victory Memorial Hospital and then SUNY Downstate.

Maimonides Medical Center has opened a new stand-alone emergency department in Bay Ridge.

“It means a lot to me that I’m able to deliver this level of care to my family, to my friends, to my neighbors, to the community that I owe so much to,” said Dr. Ahmed Rashed, medical director of Maimonides Bay Ridge Emergency Department.

What You Need To Know

  • Maimonides Medical Center has opened a new stand-alone emergency department in Bay Ridge. The facility opened in the old Victory Memorial Hospital 

  • The new emergency department’s services include trauma and psychiatric care, cardiology, pediatrics and OB/GYN care

  • It will serve south Brooklyn and Staten Island communities

Victory Memorial closed in 2006 after providing nearly a century of care to Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach and Fort Hamilton. SUNY Downstate took over, but only offered surgery that did not require an overnight.

“It was met with great community concern and disappointment because it was the most local hospital in the community serving emergency needs,” said Josephine Beckman, district manager of Community Board 10 in Brooklyn.

This emergency department will serve people in southern Brooklyn and Staten Island. And what makes it so important for them is its location. From here, the nearest emergency department is more than two miles away. And in a life or death emergency, every second counts.

Colonel Brian Jacobs is the garrison commander at Fort Hamilton military base nearby. He toured the facility.

“I have about 734 residents, and like any other resident in New York City, we have needs and requirements, especially in the medical field,” Jacobs said.

Among the emergency department’s services are trauma and psychiatric care, cardiology, pediatrics, and OB/GYN care.

Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park is well over a century old. The 711-bed hospital has deep roots in the Orthodox Jewish community.

But over the pandemic, the hospital faced criticism from community activists and politicians over reports of inadequate care, nursing shortages and financial mismanagement, which Maimonides CEO Kenneth Gibbs said was untrue and misleading.

“In the aftermath of the main COVID surge, the whole hospital sector nationally is financially challenged,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs said the hospital industry’s business model is changing.

“There are a set of emergent needs that aren’t quite as high acuity and to be able to provide close access, better speed and quick service without having to come to the main medical center we think meets a need for patients,” Gibbs said.

He said this new emergency room is how Maimonides is changing, by bringing care closer to homes.