RWJBarnabas University Hospital Somerset in Somerville held a press conference Monday to announce boosted services for the LGBTQ community.RWJBarnabas University Hospital Somerset in Somerville held a press conference Monday to announce boosted services for the LGBTQ community.

Hospital president Tony Cava, said a current LGBTQ center will add specialists and nurses, and move into a bigger space in the hospital.

“I just finished the most exciting and informative roundtable discussion I’ve had as the Commissioner of Health,” New Jersey Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Shereef Elnahal said at the press conference.

Elnahal stressed the need for more state hospitals to open or expand centers and services to the LGBTQ community. He said that members of the state’s LGBTQ community “have been neglected by the health care system for too long.”

He added: “We had a patient at the roundtable discussion who came from San Francisco, where they have a bit more of a progressive approach to health care for the LGBTQ community. She has finally been able to come to New Jersey and find a place to go, right here at RWJBarnabas. That to me says that this is a best practice and we want to see other institutions in New Jersey follow it. I humbly ask for the playbook for this institution, so that it can be displayed on our web site, so that we are able to talk about this topic as much as we can. I want to see more hospitals and more clinics adopt the best practices that we see here.”