Hitting Capacity, LIJ Forest Hills Moves Its Coronavirus Patients

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Hospital is transferring patients with the new coronavirus to sister hospitals across Queens and Long Island to keep it from swelling way over capacity.

The Forest Hills hospital, which is part of the Northwell Health system and a division of Long Island Jewish Medical Center, has sent 189 patients with the coronavirus to other hospitals in the last week, according to a spokesperson, Diane O'Donnell.

Eastern Queens and western Nassau County are bearing the brunt of Forest Hills' wave of patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

"The volume coming into LIJ Forest Hills in particular has been filling the hospital to capacity so we’ve been moving people out as quickly as we can to reduce some of the pressure on the hospital," O'Donnell said in an emailed statement to Patch.

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The pandemic already has the 240-bed hospital hovering just over capacity, Patch previously reported. Patients who either tested positive or are potentially positive for the virus occupy the majority of beds.

LIJ Forest Hills is planning to triple the size of its ICU to handle a flood of patients who are seriously ill from the virus and prepare for the expected late April peak of the pandemic.

Forest Hills is among the New York City neighborhoods that have been hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic so far, according to health department data released Wednesday: More than 400 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the 11375 ZIP code as of March 31.

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