The Elizabeth Seton Pediatric Center plans a $22 million expansion project at its 2-year-old Yonkers nursing facility to accommodate an additional 32 ventilator-dependent children with medically complex conditions. The expansion is expected to create more than 100 new jobs.
An Elizabeth Seton spokesperson said the center will seek city approval of a three-story building addition that will include 26,000 square feet of new space and 8,500 square feet of renovated space. Construction is expected to begin in February 2016 after zoning and financing approvals are secured.
Elizabeth Seton officials said the addition will enable the center to serve a total of 50 ventilator-dependent children and 169 children in all. The John A. Coleman School at the Yonkers center will add two classrooms for the new residents.
At the request of the state Department of Health, the Seton center created its long-term ventilator care program at its former Manhattan location in 2006, the first in the state. The program started with four children and grew to 18 when the new 165,000-square-foot, 137-bed Seton center in Yonkers opened in 2012.
“Before our groundbreaking long-term ventilator care program began, families of ventilator-dependent children faced the cruel dilemma of having to relocate their child out of state and far from their loved ones,” Patricia Tursi, CEO of Elizabeth Seton Pediatric Center, said in a press release. “We just couldn”™t let that happen and we knew we needed to repatriate these children and reunite them with their families.”
Seton officials said the Yonkers center already has an admissions waitlist of nearly 30 ventilator-dependent children and their families.
