The city’s public hospital system is planning to shutter a medical center in the Rockaways that provides day services to seniors. Though the facility has become underused in recent years, some local officials are voicing concerns that the closure will leave residents without care.
Neponsit Adult Day Health Center, located at 230 Beach 102nd St. in Rockaway Park, could close as early as the end of the month because of declining enrollment, according to New York City Health + Hospitals. The health system has faced increases in rent to keep the facility open, said its CEO and president, Dr. Mitchell Katz, resulting in continued losses.
“It’s a large subsidy for a very small number of people, in a service we don’t provide to everyone,” Katz said during a City Council budget hearing Thursday. “The world has closed these programs because the number of people for whom it’s the right program has become too small.”
But Far Rockaway Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers said that the closure of the facility will erode services for the people who do depend on them. “This is less about dollars and more about lives,” she said during the hearing, adding that the Rockaways are geographically isolated and one of the city’s health care deserts.
Neponsit is the public hospital system’s only adult day health center. Adult day health centers serve elderly New Yorkers who do not need round-the-clock care in a nursing home but require more medical services than recreational senior centers can provide. The facilities are staffed by nurses and provide medication management and physical therapy. They serve patients with cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer’s or dementia as well.
H+H, which operates 11 hospitals, four long-term care facilities and 40 outpatient clinics, has largely abandoned adult day centers because they serve a small population and operate at a loss, even when they reach full enrollment, Katz said. Such centers have closed in droves in the last two decades amid a boom in home care services, he added.
“The decision to sunset a program is never an easy one, and our focus is on the registrants who still utilize it,” said Chris Miller, a spokesman for H+H. He added that the health system will connect enrollees to other providers.
Katz said during his testimony that the hospital system is not seeking additional funding or partnerships with other nonprofits to keep the center open. But he added that the city’s new primary care clinic in Far Rockaway, slated to open in 2027, should fill in some of the gaps.
