NJIT-Designed Mobile Medical Unit Deployed In Queens to Tackle Rising COVID Cases
A mobile medical care unit (M2CU) designed for COVID testing and vaccination is now seeing patients in a part of Queens where the infection rate is more than twice as high as in the rest of the borough.
This month, Governor Kathy Hochul, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Martin Tuchman of the Tuchman Foundation, Oya Tukel of New Jersey Institute of Technology’s (NJIT) Martin Tuchman School of Management, and the New York City Housing Authority unveiled the city’s first implementation of the M2CU in Astoria Houses.
The M2CU project was conceived in response to challenges to clinical capacity posed by the pandemic. Each M2CU is repurposed from existing shipping containers to deliver a safe, clean climate-controlled environment that can be tailored to each location it serves.
Before the coalition brought the M2CU facility to the neighborhood, there was only one vaccination site within a half-mile of the 24 buildings that make up the Astoria Houses, and it was not accessible via public transit.
As reported in New York Daily News, the COVID case rate in the area is 32,000 per 100,000 people, more than double the case rate in the rest of Queens, and almost triple the case rate of residents in Manhattan.
Spearheading the Queens M2CU initiative is U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, who spoke at the unveiling, saying, “Of all the inequities in life, not having access to life-saving healthcare may be the greatest. We all need to commit ourselves fully to ending that, as we are doing today with this very innovative health care unit.”
The Kingston, N.J.-based Tuchman Foundation, established by Tuchman Group CEO Martin Tuchman, supplies his company’s deep experience in shipping and logistics. The foundation, a nonprofit corporation that supports research on health care, including diseases and cures, provided initial funding to develop the prototype.
Tuchman founded and ran one of the largest container and chassis leasing companies in the world, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, at the time he sold it to the Fortress Investment Group for $2.4 Billion 15 years ago. He is a graduate of NJIT, as well as the founder of NJIT’s Martin Tuchman School of Management, where the design and logistics were developed under the guidance of Dr. Oya Tukel, Ph.D., dean of NJIT’s Martin Tuchman School of Management.
“New Jersey Institute of Technology, as one of the nation’s leading research universities, is honored to be part of Congresswoman Maloney’s efforts to expand health care access to areas of need,” said Tukel.
“It took every department at NJIT working together, from our engineering, to mechanical, to electrical, civil and school of architecture to make this happen,” Tuchman said at the opening. “The NJIT School of Management proved once again that one can have all the technical know-how to create something, but you need an efficient management team to pull it all together. This is a perfect example.”
“I want to thank Mr. Tuchman for his generosity in bringing this to us. We hope this is just the beginning,” said Governor Hochul, who has championed the initiative and also attended the unveiling. "We need to make sure New York's recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is inclusive, equitable and fair. That's why it's so important to have sites like this new medical care unit at the Astoria Houses, bringing much-needed resources and services to communities that have been left behind for far too long.”