The East Hampton Healthcare Center at 200 Pantigo Place, where all town residents, even if un- or underinsured, can receive health care, turned 20 this month.
“Well, the story really goes back 25 years,” said Henry Murray, 91, who recently announced his retirement as chairman of the foundation that runs the center. “In 1997, I was a member of the East Hampton Village Preservation Society, and I subsequently became their president and chairman. We were always trying to figure out what to do to help East Hampton Village, and we did a needs assessment in the community with about 10 questions. Health care seemed to come up as the most wanting.”
The dearth of medical care here was one of the most serious issues facing the community, said Mr. Murray, who has headed the health foundation since 2002. “We found that 40 percent of our population was going west of Southampton for healthcare — west of Southampton! In other words, a lot of people never went to see a doctor. They just didn’t go, period.”
The East Hampton Healthcare Foundation was incorporated in 1998 and gained its nonprofit status thereafter, with Jack Kennedy as chairman and Jerome DeCosse, a doctor, as president. With a group of concerned citizens leading their fund-raising campaign, they raised about $700,000 to buy the Pantigo Place site from Southampton Hospital.
“We got together and we approached a number of our friends here in East Hampton,” Mr. Murray recalled. “And then we got them to hand over a donation — on a wing and a prayer. We did have a business plan, but they just gave us the money based on our credibility as friends. We raised another $4 million for the bricks and mortar — which turned into the 18,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art structure, on one floor with plenty of parking. Then we started recruiting doctors to fill it up.”
The business plan had projected that it would take three years to fill the offices. “Within six months we had the building almost full,” Mr. Murray said. Several physicians who were initially recruited are still there today, among them Drs. Gail Schonfeld, a pediatrician; George Dempsey, a family practitioner and the medical director of East Hampton Family Medicine; Louise Collins, a gynecologist; Kenneth Mark, a dermatologist; Meciko Muharemovic, an internist, and Ralph Gibson, an internist.
Mr. Murray began his professional life in the U.S. Air Force, as a first lieutenant of air intelligence. In 1954, he joined the sales team at Continental Can, a leading producer of metal containers and packaging, based in Stamford, Conn. After a brief stint in 1980 on the economic development council of Chase Manhattan Bank, he was recruited to spearhead development and fund-raising for the newly formed New York City Partnership, a nonprofit membership organization (now called The Partnership for New York City) founded by David Rockefeller to invest in economic development in all five boroughs.
Mr. Murray’s expertise clearly helped the East Hampton Healthcare Foundation raise more than $15 million in private contributions over the last 20 years. In 2008, the group also funded the construction of the 3,000-square-foot East Hampton Urgent Care Center on Montauk Highway. The money also helps offset the cost of treating uninsured patients.
“About 15 percent of the population nationwide do not have insurance,” Mr. Murray said, among them people he called “deadbeats” — “those who have money to pay but don’t.” The foundation addresses the problem like this: Anyone without health insurance is required to first visit the health care center and meet with a benefits counselor, who assesses their financial situation and determines whether or not they qualify for free care.
Looking ahead, Mr. Murray, who will stay with the foundation as a trustee emeritus, said that its biggest wish is to see an emergency department constructed at the Pantigo site. “Our mission, as we stated 25 years ago, was threefold: To improve the quality, accessibility, and availability of healthcare in the community. And we’ve accomplished those three things, but we’ve never had 24/7 healthcare available out here. We’re going to have that with the emergency department, which would be a satellite of the Stony Brook Southampton setup.”
Mr. Murray officially stepped down on Jan. 1 and was succeeded by Gerald Cromack II, a longstanding member of the foundation who had been its vice chairman for finance. Other board changes include the retirement of its president, Gerard Turino, who will be replaced by Peter Odell, another longtime board member who is a clinical professor of ophthalmology at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The two other trustees, Michael Wolk and Jack Lasersohn, will become vice chairman for medicine and vice chairman for finance, respectively.
Mr. Murray has had a house in East Hampton for over 50 years. “I’m thankful to the people of East Hampton who have contributed to and supported the healthcare foundation to the point that we’ve never had to borrow money,” he said. “Secondly, and almost as importantly, I want to thank all of our trustees over the past 25 years, who do all this, pro bono. Nobody ever gets paid.”
And now, he said, he and his wife are off to Costa Rica for a short break.
