She almost died from Covid at this hospital, which saved her life. Now she leads it.
Helen Arteaga Landaverde became the first woman and first Hispanic to become CEO of New York City Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, leading a public hospital that's part of the country's largest municipal health system.
In 2020, when New York City was the epicenter of the Covid pandemic and grappling with thousands of cases, Helen Arteaga Landaverde became seriously ill with the disease and was admitted to New York City Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst, a public hospital that is part of the country's largest municipal health system.
“I said, ‘Oh, my God, I’m going to die in the same place where my father died,’” said Arteaga Landaverde, whose father's leukemia diagnosis and rapid death years before had compelled her to shift her career trajectory from chemistry to public health.
She was one of the fortunate ones who survived Covid, and a year later, the medical staff who cared for her found themselves working under her leadership: In 2021, Arteaga Landaverde became Elmhurst's first female — and first Hispanic — chief executive officer. The public hospital she now leads was founded in 1837 in the borough of Queens, a county of over 2 million people that's one of the most ethnically diverse in the country.
In the last few years, the history-making CEO has been focused on ensuring that Elmhurst gets the same kind of high-tech equipment that is available at private hospitals, with the goal of making it a top facility in the country. "Two hundred thousand dollars," she said, pointing to a machine. "It's a small machine, but it helps our patients so much."
"I wanted to do something that would change the world — that our people know that one of them is running the largest hospital in Queens," Arteaga Landaverde said in an interview with Noticias Telemundo, "that one of them also understands it's not easy to come to this country, that it's not easy to learn a new language."
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