Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center was established by the Daughters of Wisdom. It opened on May 18, 1959 on a 60-acre parcel adjacent to the Great South Bay. From 1963 to 1967, Robert Moses was the chairperson for the hospital's annual ball. On July 29, 1981, Robert Moses died at Good Samaritan Hospital at age 92. It has undergone major expansions six times: to the east in 1966; to the south with the 120-bed Baxter Pavilion in 1970; to the west with two additional patient floors in 1973; to the north in 1983 with a five-story addition which included eight new operating rooms and new radiology and pediatric departments; and in 1996 with a four-story addition for the teaching, mammography, pathology and surgical programs. The sixth expansion, begun in 1998, was a new two-story structure connected to the main building by a corridor. The Center for Emergency Medicine and Trauma, which was dedicated on April 22, 2001, encompasses the first floor. In February 1980, Good Samaritan acquired the former Sayville Nursing Home for elderly patients who could no longer live home alone. The structure at the corner of Elm and Candee Avenues was totally refurbished as the Good Samaritan Nursing Home with skilled nursing facilities for 100 patient-residents. In 1992, the West Islip Breast Cancer Coalition asked Good Samaritan to open a breast cancer center, and in February 1994, Good Samaritan opened its Breast Health Center. It became Long Island's the first comprehensive breast health center. According to The New York Times, the center offers mammography examinations, biopsies, surgeries, after care, counseling, a boutique, and support groups. In 1997, the Breast Health Center was one of four places in the United States that was conducting clinical trials for new filmless digital mammography technology. In 1997, the Bishop John R. McGann of the Rockville Centre diocese dismissed the separate boards operating Good Samaritan Hospital, St. Francis Hospital, Mercy Medical Center, and St. Charles Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, and placed the four hospitals under the management of the newly created Catholic Health Services of Long Island in response in changes in the health care industry and in order to aid the poor and needy.
In the autumn of 1987, Good Samaritan Hospital nurse Richard Angelo was arrested following a urine analysis of Good Samaritan patient Geralomo Kucich that showed the drugs Pavulon and Anectine in his system. Following his arrest, the remains of some of the patients Angelo had treated were exhumed and 10 of the deceased patients also tested positive for the drugs. Angelo eventually confessed to authorities, telling them during a taped interview, "I wanted to create a situation where I would cause the patient to have some respiratory distress or some problem, and through my intervention or suggested intervention or whatever, come out looking like I knew what I was doing. I had no confidence in myself. I felt very inadequate." He was charged with multiple counts of second-degree murder and was ultimately convicted of two counts of depraved indifference murder, one count of second degree manslaughter, one count of criminally negligent homicide and six counts of assaultwith respect to five of the patients and was sentenced to 61 years to life.
