South Nassau Communities Hospital honors developer Bruce Ratner

Bruce C. Ratner, executive chairman of Forest City Ratner Companies, will be honored at South Nassau Communities Hospital’s 2015 Annual Carnation Ball on Nov. 7 at the Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury.

The hospital also named Joshua Kugler, MD, FACEP, FAAEM, chair of its department of emergency medicine, as recipient of the prestigious Mary Pearson Award. Dr. Kugler has been deeply involved in the effort to open the Emergency Department in Long Beach while overseeing the hospital’s busy Emergency Department in Oceanside.

“Bruce Ratner is a visionary and one of New York’s leading real estate developers,” said Richard J. Murphy, president and CEO of South Nassau. “His firm has been at the forefront of a number of transformative projects, including Barclays Center in Brooklyn and now the redevelopment of the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum site. We are grateful that he has agreed to lend his support to South Nassau for our biggest fundraising event of the year,” said South Nassau President and CEO Richard J. Murphy.

Money raised by the ball will support South Nassau’s Emergency Department Expansion Campaign, a five-year, $10 million fundraising initiative to help pay for a $60 million renovation and expansion of the Oceanside Emergency Department which serves all residents of the South Shore from Queens to Suffolk. The project will increase the Emergency Department’s square footage from 16,000 to 30,000 square feet, increasing its overall size by 87 percent and giving it the necessary room to accommodate in excess of 80,000 patient visits each year as well as establishing dedicated areas for behavioral health and pediatric emergencies. The Emergency Department currently sees some 65,000 patients a year but was designed to handle 35,000 annually.

“It is an honor to be recognized by a medical center that is as impactful as South Nassau Communities Hospital,” said Ratner. “With the number of patients seen on a daily basis, there is no question that this hospital serves a major need in Nassau County and it is imperative that we help it fulfill its vital mission.”