Coronavirus: Ulster Builds Its Own Field Hospital

KINGSTON, NY — Concerned that the rise in new coronavirus cases in Ulster County will soon overwhelm the local health care system, County Executive Pat Ryan began on Tuesday to set up a field hospital and an overflow center for the community as part of a coordinated effort to quadruple the current local hospital bed capacity.

Ryan said Monday that Ulster County had seen a near 50 percent surge in those being hospitalized from COVID-19 over the last several days. He cautioned that the county was on course to exhaust all available beds and ventilators by the end of the week. County officials said there were 402 confirmed cases of new coronavirus and 5 fatalities in Ulster as of April 7.

"As I have said from day one, we will not rest until we have the facilities and the equipment needed to protect the health and safety of all of our residents,” Ryan said in a statement. "We will continue to monitor the situation and adjust our plan based on the data we are seeing on the ground to ensure we stay ahead of the curve. I hope and pray that we don’t need to use these additional beds, but we must be prepared for the worst case."

The first part of the initiative is the Project Resilience Community Care Center, a new facility at the Kate Walton Fieldhouse on the Kingston High School campus, which will be ready to open as soon as next week. It will provide an additional 100 beds to serve patients transitioning into or out of local hospitals that could become overwhelmed by a surge in COVID-19 cases.

Second is a portion of the former Bank of America building at TechCity, to allow for the build-out of potentially hundreds of additional beds. The location is expected to be available around the time local hospital capacity is at its height. The plan is to use it for residents still recovering and transitioning out of hospitals but unable to as yet return home.

Ulster County’s Department of Public Works, with assistance from Central Hudson and the Town of Ulster, will isolate and build out the 100,000 square foot space at TechCity. It is scheduled to be up and running in May.

The Project Resilience Community Care Center at the Kate Walton Fieldhouse will remain in place for a minimum of the month of April. Strategically located between the HealthAlliance’s Broadway and Mary’s Avenue campuses, the facility will be staffed by Nuvance Health in partnership with Health Alliance.

When school comes back into session, the Project Resilience Community Center will shift exclusively to TechCity and the Kate Walton Fieldhouse will be put back into use for students' athletic needs after a complete cleaning and decontamination.

“We are proud of the teamwork between our school district and Ulster County,” Superintendent Dr. Paul Padalino said. “I want to assure all parents that we are taking every step necessary to protect the safety of our staff and students. These are the moments that we must come together to support our community. We are happy to provide this critical location while the County constructs additional facilities.”

A week ago, state and local officials announced that the Mary’s Avenue campus of HealthAlliance Hospital will be converted and built out to provide 235 beds for coronavirus patients in our community.

"It was a phenomenal step forward fighting this pandemic, and the County thanked Gov. Andrew Cuomo for his leadership and foresight in helping bring that to fruition," Ryan said.

For the past few weeks, a County team from the Health Department, Emergency Management, Department of Public Works and the Executive Office staff have surveyed numerous potential sites to facilitate additional increases in bed capacity for our residents. The team looked through schools, retail spaces and industrial sites, assessing facilities on their water supply, sewage disposal capacity, electric service capacity, natural gas hookups, generator supply and availability, ease of access, and air conditioning capacity.

The team surveyed the former Coleman High School in Kingston, large vacant retail spaces, the former St. Joseph’s School, the County fairgrounds, warehouses and factories, and ultimately concluded the Kate Walton Fieldhouse and TechCity site as the best fit.

“The Kingston City School Board of Education unanimously supports this decision,” School Board President James Shaughnessy said. “We are working with Ulster County to both ensure that residents have the critical bed space that they need and to ensure that we can smoothly and safely transition the space back for students when the appropriate time comes.”

To watch the Facebook Live Town Hall, click here.