Bayley Seton Hospital
Encyclopedia
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. it is primarily a psychiatric
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
and social services outpatient hospital, operated jointly by Richmond University Medical Center
Richmond University Medical Center
Richmond University Medical Center is a hospital in West New Brighton, Staten Island in New York City. The hospital occupies the buildings that were formerly St. Vincent's Medical Center, which closed in 2006.-History:...
and Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center
Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center
Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers ' was a healthcare system, anchored by its flagship hospital, St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, locally referred to as "St. Vincent's". St. Vincent's was founded in 1849 and closed in 2010...
.
Location
Bayley Seton is located on a 20 acres (80,937.2 m²), 12 building site in the CliftonClifton, Staten Island
Clifton or Park Hill is a neighborhood in northeastern Staten Island in New York City in the United States. It is an older waterfront neighborhood, facing Upper New York Bay on the east...
and Stapleton
Stapleton, Staten Island
Stapleton is a neighborhood in northeastern Staten Island in New York City in the United States. It is located along the waterfront of Upper New York Bay, bounded on the north by Tompkinsville at Grant Street, on the south by Clifton at Vanderbilt Avenue, and on the west by St. Paul's Avenue and...
areas of the North Shore
North Shore, Staten Island
The term North Shore is frequently applied to a series of neighborhoods within New York City's borough of Staten Island, USA.- Boundaries :...
of the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
Borough of Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...
, north west of the intersection of Bay street and Vanderbilt Avenue
Vanderbilt Avenue (Staten Island)
Vanderbilt Avenue is a major northeast-southwest artery along the East Shore of the New York City borough of Staten Island. It is approximately long, and runs through the neighborhoods of Clifton, Stapleton Heights, Concord, and Grymes Hill...
. The complex is bounded by Bay Street to the east, Vanderbilt Ave. to the South, Tompkins Avenue to the West, and residential development to the north. The block, with portions sold off over time, also includes Public School 721, the St. Elizabeth Ann's Health Care & Rehabilitation Center, the New York Foundling Hospital Staten Island, and an unaffiliated geriatric center.
History
The current Bayley Seaton campus was constructed around the Marine Hospital ServiceMarine Hospital Service
The Marine-Hospital Service was an organization of Marine Hospitals dedicated to the care of ill and disabled seamen in the U.S. Merchant Marine, U.S. Coast Guard and other federal beneficiaries....
(MHS) buildings at the site. On October 1, 1831 Staten Island's first hospital, the Seaman's Retreat, was opened here, to serve retired Naval and commercial sailors. Three of these original colonnaded structures remain, dating from the 1830s and 1840s. The MHS was to provide medical treatment to Naval personnel. On May 6, 1857, the Port of New York Quarantine Hospital in Tompkinsville
Tompkinsville, Staten Island
Tompkinsville is a neighborhood in northeastern Staten Island in New York City in the United States. Though the neighborhood sits on the island's eastern shore, along the waterfront facing Upper New York Bay — between St...
, about a mile north along the shore, was attacked by a local mob, fearful of the mostly immigrant detainees. The next year, on September 1, 1858, a mob again attacked the hospital, burning it down. A new quarantine center was created on Swinburne Island
Swinburne Island
Swinburne Island is the smaller of two artificial islands located in the Lower New York Bay east of South Beach, Staten Island.-History:The island was created in 1860. Along with Hoffman Island, it was used to quarantine immigrants to the United States in the early 20th century who were found to be...
(a fill off the South Shore of Staten Island, about 2.5 miles (4 km) south of Fort Wadsworth
Fort Wadsworth
Fort Wadsworth is a former United States military installation on Staten Island in New York City, situated on The Narrows which divide New York Bay into Upper and Lower halves, a natural point for defense of the Upper Bay and Manhattan beyond. Prior to closing in 1994 it claimed to be the longest...
). In 1874, some of these resources were transferred to the Marine Hospital Service buildings at what is now BSH. Also housed here was the Seaman's Retreat, which would later become Sailors Snug Harbor
Sailors Snug Harbor
Sailors' Snug Harbor, also known as Sailors Snug Harbor or Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden or referenced informally as Snug Harbor, is a collection of architecturally significant 19th century buildings set in a park located along the Kill Van Kull on the north shore of Staten...
, when moved around three miles (5 km) northwest in the 1883. At that point the entire complex was operated U.S. Marine Hospital Service.
National Institutes of Health
With this move came a greater need for the study of disease. In 1887, 28 year old MHS officer Dr. Joseph J. Kinyoun, established a single room bacteriological laboratory on the top floor of the Marine Hospital.
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
began as a single room Laboratory of Hygiene for Bacteriological Investigation established by the U.S. Marine Hospital Service at Stapleton, Staten Island, New York, in 1887. From 1887 to 1891 the Laboratory was located in the attic of the Marine Hospital on Staten Island, which had been the Seaman's Retreat until leased by the Federal Government in 1883 and made part of the Marine Hospital Service. The building that housed the Laboratory still stands and is part of the Bayley Seton Hospital.
In 1902, the United States Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
passed legislation to fund the Laboratory of Hygiene for Bacteriological Investigation, and moved it to Washington where, as a result of the 1930 Ransdell Act
Ransdell Act
The Ransdell Act , reorganized, expanded and redesignated the Laboratory of Hygiene as the National Institute of Health....
, it became the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
.
Staten Island Public Health Service Hospital
In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt began a campaign to construct and maintain U.S. Public Health Service Hospitals, to serve the Military, veterans, and the general public. As part of this process, what is now the main building of Bayley Seton was constructed. Staten Island Public Health Service Hospital was built as a five to seven story hospital, in a Mayan revival style. Until 1981, the hospital operated inpatient and outpatient services, emergency, surgery, and rehabilitation wards. Military installations at Fort WadsworthFort Wadsworth
Fort Wadsworth is a former United States military installation on Staten Island in New York City, situated on The Narrows which divide New York Bay into Upper and Lower halves, a natural point for defense of the Upper Bay and Manhattan beyond. Prior to closing in 1994 it claimed to be the longest...
, Fort Hamilton
Fort Hamilton
Historic Fort Hamilton is located in the southwestern corner of the New York City borough of Brooklyn surrounded by the communities of Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, and Bensonhurst, and is one of several posts that are part of the region which is headquartered by the Military District of Washington...
(just across the narrows in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
), the Staten Island Home port, Miller Field Air Station
Miller Field (Staten Island)
Miller Field was a United States Air Force facility on Staten Island, New York, in New Dorp. It was founded in November 1919 and completed in 1921...
, as well as air, naval and Coast Guard installations built during the Second World War assured a large military and veteran population for the hospital. In 1980, President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
announced plans to close or sell all such hospitals, and despite local protest, Staten Island Public Health Service Hospital was sold to the Sisters of Charity of New York
Sisters of Charity of New York
The Sisters of Charity of New York is a religious congregation of women in the Catholic Church whose primary missions are education and nursing and who are dedicated in particular to the service of the poor.-History:...
, a Catholic medical and social services system.
Bayley Seton
The Sisters of Charity renamed the hospital Bayley Seton after New York's Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, and her father Richard BayleyRichard Bayley
Richard Bayley was a New York City physician and chief health officer.-Biography:He was born in 1745 in Fairfield, Connecticut. In 1766 he was apprenticed to John Charlton. Charlton was a physician who lived and worked in New York City. Bayley married John's sister, Catherine Charlton and had...
, an American born British Army Revolutionary War surgeon and founder of the New York Dispensary
Provident dispensary
A public dispensary, charitable dispensary or free dispensary gives advice and medicines free-of-charge, or for a small charge.Examples of pre-20th century dispensaries for patients who could not pay a doctor's usual fee include:...
. Bayley was also the head of the Quarantine Station for the port of New York at Tompkinsville. The New hospital expanded its campus buildings to include the Saint Elizabeth Ann outpatient clinics and turned over part of the campus to the New York Foundling Hospital
Foundling hospital
A foundling hospital was originally an institution for the reception of foundlings, i.e., children who had been abandoned or exposed, and left for the public to find and save...
. In the 1990s Amethyst House, a women's Drug Abuse Treatment center was opened, as well as an Alcoholism Acute Care Unit on the 3rd floor, a Saint Vincents Nursing School on the fifth floor, social service agencies in other buildings, including the Saint Elizabeth Ann's Health Care & Rehabilitation Center, hospital impatient Drug rehab treatment services, services for co-occurring mental and substance abuse disorders, a psych emergency center (a Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program - CPEP), and the center for a mental health client dispersed housing and in-community employment program.
Saint Vincents
In 2000, Sisters of Charity turned over Bayley (along with their main Staten Island hospital) to Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical CenterSaint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center
Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers ' was a healthcare system, anchored by its flagship hospital, St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattan, locally referred to as "St. Vincent's". St. Vincent's was founded in 1849 and closed in 2010...
, itself the Manhattan and Westchester County New York's Sisters of Charity run hospitals, to create Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers New York. Facing financial difficulties almost immediately, Bayley saw around half its services closed, including its emergency room, pharmacy, surgery, and most medical clinics closed. After filing for bankruptcy in 2003, SVCMC spun off or closed almost half its sites, including selling their Bard Avenue Staten Island Hospital to Bayonne Medical Center
Bayonne Medical Center
Bayonne Medical Center is a hospital in Bayonne, New Jersey. Established in 1888, Bayonne Medical Center is a 278-bed, fully accredited, acute-care hospital....
, becoming Richmond University Medical Center
Richmond University Medical Center
Richmond University Medical Center is a hospital in West New Brighton, Staten Island in New York City. The hospital occupies the buildings that were formerly St. Vincent's Medical Center, which closed in 2006.-History:...
in 2007. Most psych and addiction services were retained, along with addiction treatment, and outpatient clinics for geriatric, HIV, Military and family health services, and mother and baby care.
Recent activity
At the beginning of 2008, SVCMC had formally separated from Richmond University Medical CenterRichmond University Medical Center
Richmond University Medical Center is a hospital in West New Brighton, Staten Island in New York City. The hospital occupies the buildings that were formerly St. Vincent's Medical Center, which closed in 2006.-History:...
, while negotiating a deal to share Bayley Seton. , there are an estimated 1,500 patients who use the Bayley Seton facilities regularly,, and as of 2004 (prior to the RUMC / SVCMC split) the hospital employed approximately 550 staff, just more than half the 990 employed in 2000.
Six smaller buildings were closed, staff consolidated, and a deal was struck whereby at the end of 2008, the Salvation Army
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
would purchase the Bayley campus, demolish the Main hospital, and build a recreation center. As of March 2008, there has been public, political, and press outcry at this plan, especially as the new Richmond University Medical Center
Richmond University Medical Center
Richmond University Medical Center is a hospital in West New Brighton, Staten Island in New York City. The hospital occupies the buildings that were formerly St. Vincent's Medical Center, which closed in 2006.-History:...
announced it would end most operations at Bayley and scale back operations at its main campus.
Similar campaigns have failed to stop closures and downsizing at Bayley in the past.