Senator Jack M. Martins joined with Winthrop University Hospital in Mineola in announcing that it is the Nassau County site of the Stony Brook University Medical Center’s World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program (WTCMMTP).
The program provides excellent clinical care for the thousands of people who were exposed to toxic chemicals and who continue to suffer from upper and lower respiratory tract distress, mental health symptoms, and other conditions related to the environment at ground zero.
In operation since immediately after 9/11, the WTCMMTP is a federally funded program largely supported by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), an arm of the Centers for Disease Control. With an annual budget of more than $8 million, the SBUMC program to date follows 6,000 9/11 responders, including police officers, firefighters, paramedics, and construction workers with an 80 percent retention rate. This program has grown an average of 17 percent annually.
The Long Island WTCMMTP’s role is to provide comprehensive and integrated health care to all eligible WTC responders who are based in Nassau, and Suffolk counties and now, with new funding, Kings County.
The Winthrop University Hospital clinical site will assist in ensuring geographic accessibility to medical care for the many WTC responders who reside in Nassau County. It is a welcome complement to the Center of Excellence located in Islandia.
According to Marc Wilkenfeld, M.D., Chief of the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Winthrop, who has been involved with treating Ground Zero responders since immediately after 9/11, “Thousands of responders from Nassau County participated in the rescue and recovery effort at Ground Zero. Winthrop-University Hospital is extremely pleased to be a partner in The Clinical Center of Excellence and provide care to this deserving population. The NIOSH award and collaboration with Stony Brook will enable Nassau responders with medical issues to benefit from Winthrop’s expertise in Occupational and Environmental Medicine as well as our leading edge specialty physicians and convenient hospital facilities.”
