BY RICHARD SCHACK

In real estate, location is everything, and a report by a group of health care professionals charges that in Southeast Queens the same is true for health care.

A recently formed health-care advocacy group of health care professionals and organized by Congressman Gregory Meeks, claims there are a number of problems with accessing proper preventative healthcare in the Congressman’s 6th District is compared to healthcare of the rest of the City.

The group, called the Sixth Congressional District Health Advisory Group (HAG), charges that to access proper health services residents of southeast Queens must travel too far and wide to receive them, too.

Members of the Health Advisory Group (HAG) claim there’s a great disparity between health services provided to south Queens residents as compared to those provided the rest of the City, according to the report released exclusively to the PRESS.

HAG was assembled by Congressman Gregory Meeks, who has been vocal in his belief that there is a lack of proper health services in his district.

"The intent is not to tear down the hospitals," said Meeks, "but to identify exactly what’s wrong and fix it. There are 500,000 people in my district, and I believe most are not being served properly."

HAG’s report chronicles various problems in accessing healthcare from Southeast Queens, including the location and adequacy of hospitals and ambulatory services administered to local areas of south Queens, specifically Jamaica and St. Albans.

The biggest problem, HAG charges, is the location of health centers that provide preventive care to serve local residents.

"It’s extremely difficult for residents in outlying areas to access various services," charges Simone-Marie Meeks, co-chair of HAG and wife of Congressman Meeks.

There are eight hospitals and 36 ambulatory care facilities serving Southeast Queens. But, according to HAG, most residents use services in the central part of the borough, mainly Forest Hills.

"If it takes you potentially hours of travel to reach your primary health facility, that is a severe problem," said Dr. Canute Bernard, retired surgeon and co-chair of HAG. "There are a number of deficiencies." The largest medical facilities serving southeast Queens and offering the most comprehensive services are, however, located within the community. Jamaica Hospital and the Queens Hospital Center are both accessible from most parts of southeast Queens.

New York Hospital of Queens reports there are a number of ways in which the hospital reaches out to the community of Southeast Queens including the Jamaica Dental Health Center and the Hollis Women’s Center, both run by the hospital.

Additionally, a new pediatric service center may be opening in the community soon, and will help serve children with asthma, a common health problem in the community.

Despite that fact, members of HAG feel their communities are still missing out on the sophisticated preventive and diagnostic services easily available to other areas. HAG members point to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) centers as an example of a medical service lacking within the community.

MRI centers use high-tech equipment to provide images of internal organs in order to identify bone or muscle ailments and diseases. While MRI centers have become more and more widely used during the last few years, their proliferation seems to have missed southeast Queens. There are roughly 60 MRI Centers throughout the borough, but barely any within easy access from southeast Queens neighborhoods, the report claims. The majority of MRI centers are located in central Queens.

According to Yvonne Reddick, district manager of Community Board 12, "The problem is not the quantity of health facilities," said Reddick, "it’s the quality of them and who they’re serving."

Reddick said many of the private health care facilities located in her district (which includes Jamaica, South Jamaica, Hollis, St. Albans, Springfield Gardens, South Ozone Park, and Addesleigh) do not reach out to the communities which they are supposed to serve.

"When these facilities, which typically offer specialty services such as prenatal and HIV/AIDS care, first move into the community they state how they don’t turn anybody down for medical needs," said Reddick, "But that is just not true."

"Ironically, while we have local residents leaving their local neighborhoods for health care we actually have more people coming from outside our district to use services that should be ours."

A spokesperson for Jamaica Hospital rebutted Reddick’s claims, stating the hospital has a number of small, neighborhood facilities throughout Southeast Queens, facilities which accept "nearly all kinds of health insurance utilized by the community, including HMO’s.

The spokesperson added
there is heavy outreach in the community, including
attending over 100 community events this year and aded
there is a special mobile medical unit used by Jamaica Hospoital which travels throughout the community offering free health screenings.

Reddick added many of the facilities that do accept HMO’s and other popular forms of coverage do little outreach in the surrounding community. As a result many local residents who need the services don’t even know they’re there. That in itself is a large reason residents leave the district for health care.

"It is always dispariging when you hear of people having to travel far out of the community for services," said Dan Andrews, spokesperson for Queens Borough President Dan Andrews. "But things have gotten better the last several years. We’re seeing a lot more small, private clinics opening up within communities."

Jamaica Hospital has opened a number of "satellite offices" in various locations throughout southeast Queens. The satellite offices are small health-care centers under the guidance of Jamaica Hospital’s Outpatient Services Administration, and accept most health plans serving the community and are called "MediSys Family Care Centers."

Services vary by office and can include everything from pediatrics to neurology to dental. The offices are easily accessible. There are five MediSys Centers located throughout southeast Queens, including Hollis, Jamaica, Springfield Gardens, St. Albans, and a Women’s Health Center on Jamaica Avenue.

According to HAG and local community boards, the satellite offices have helped address community concerns.

In the last several years a number of studies have been done highlighting health problems and the lack of health services in minority neighborhoods.

In 1998 President Clinton’s office announced a proposal focusing on a lack of health care in minority areas.

Called the Racial and Ethnic Disparities Initiative, it aims to reduce health and health care disparities in minority neighborhoods nationwide by 2010.

HAG is seeking to imitate the President’s initiative with efforts focusing on neighborhoods in the Sixth Congressional District, including all of southeast Queens and the Rockaways.

The newly formed group includes eight volunteer members – all physicians and professionals in various health-related fields who are local residents dedicated to representing their community.

The HAG report also includes listings and analysis of the most prevalent health problems in south Queens based on extensive information, primarily hospital discharges reported going back to 1983.

Common health problems in Southeast Queens as well as minority neighborhoods nationwide include infant mortality, cancer screening and management, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV/AIDS infections and immunization.

As far as medical complications, the report found there were less in south Queens than the rest of the city. Psychoses, heart failure and shock, and bronchitis and asthma were all found to be significantly less prevalent in southeast Queens than the rest of the City.

For all of south Queens, there were found to be higher than normal instances of two types of cancer. According to the State Department of Health, lung cancer is found to be higher than normal in the district, especially for males. There is also a higher than the City average number of breast cancer cases and a prevalence of diabetes for blacks in Southeast Queens.