State Lawmakers, Local Officials Celebrate Hospital Merger With Unveiling Of New Sign In Southampton

The merger of Southampton Hospital with the Stony Brook Medicine health care system was made symbolically complete when officials unveiled a brand new “Stony Brook Southampton Hospital” sign at the main entrance of the facility on Monday.

The sign unveiling and flag-raising event was attended by dozens of hospital officials, local and state lawmakers, and members of the community. The merger of the 125-bed facility—located in the heart of Southampton Village—with Stony Brook Medicine, which includes Stony Brook University Hospital, was made official on August 1.

Speakers included Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul; State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr.; Stony Brook University President Dr. Samuel Stanley; Stony Brook Southampton Hospital Chief Administrative Officer Robert Chaloner and Southampton Hospital Association Board Chairman Kenneth Wright; Dr. Reuven Pasternak, chief executive officer at Stony Brook University Hospital; and Dr. Kenneth Kaushansky, senior vice president of health sciences at the Stony Brook University School of Medicine.

A new cardiac catheterization laboratory, which will be located in the Audrey and Martin Gruss Heart and Stroke Center, is scheduled to open on September 5 and will be the first facility of its kind on Long Island east of Route 112. The hospital’s new Phillips Family Cancer Center, on County Road 39 in Southampton, is scheduled to open at the end of 2018.

The long-term vision surrounding the deal is the eventual construction of a new hospital facility on the 82-acre Stony Brook Southampton campus in Shinnecock Hills, which is slated to take up about 13 acres of the campus. It is unclear when Stony Brook will make a final decision about the proposal, whose feasibility relied first on the merger and then on the ability to raise some $250 million, the estimated cost of a new facility.