Friends of Arverne​    - Website Under Construction

Healthcare in our community


Friends of Arverne is working to keep the residents of Arverne and the surrounding communities informed about local healthcare issues. Look for regular updates with urgent or critical issues highlighted. ​

1. Zika virus is expected to be in the US very shortly. 
The NYC metropolitan area is expected to have mosquitos carrying the  Zika virus.
- Best prevention is to avoid being bitten, by using mosquito repellant. 
- The best repellants have been reviewed by Consumer Reports. 
- The Zika carrying mosquito bites in the day time, other mosquitos bite at sun down.


2. St John’s Episcopal Hospital is expected to get additional funding for its ER. 
This will improve the present environment but will not increase the level of care and not include Level I Trauma Care (LITC) and Emergency Interventional Cardiac Care (EICC). 
See attached for more information. 


Lack of Emergency Care in the Rockaways

http://www.slideshare.net/rosiebeeme/new-rockaway-health


After Hurricane Sandy a group was set up to study the health care problems in the Rockaways. The study showed that:
• The Rockaways are geographically isolated from Level I Trauma Care (LITC) and Emergency Interventional Cardiac Care (EICC). 
• The time to a LITC or EICC is to 2-3 times longer for the Rockaways than the rest of Queens.
• There is only one hospital in the Rockaways, it is not a Level I Trauma Center (LITC) and does not have Emergency Interventional Cardiac Care (EICC) for heart attack care.
 - Rockaway has the highest cardiac related death rate in NYC as reported in 2010

• There are only 2 EMT and 2 Paramedic ambulances every night on the Rockaway Peninsula for 120,000 residents.
• There are no traffic light pre-emption systems working here that allow ambulances to control traffic lights to improve the time to get emergency care. 


“Delayed Access to Level I Trauma Care for Rockaway” http://www.rockawave.com/news/2013-03-29/Columnists/Dispatches.html The Wave 3/29/2013. 
Recently research reveals that the Rockaway has the highest cardiac related mortality in NYC and that the greater the distance in miles to PICC predicts a higher mortality for all cardiac mortality. 


Airport Noise Pollution: 

http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5561 
 

The health effects of aircraft noise have been supported in a recent scientific publication. A study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) show that older people exposed to aircraft noise, especially at high levels, may face increased risk of being hospitalized for cardiovascular disease. On average, zip codes with 10-decibel higher aircraft noise had a 3.5% higher cardiovascular hospital admission rate.

 Arverne has on average 65 decibels which is 10-decibels higher than the international accepted 55 decibels.

The rest of the Rockaway peninsula has on average 55 decibels.
 

Community Board 14, June 2016 meeting, had a presentation re airplane noise current issue of changing NYC noise standard from 65 to 55.