Queens clinic expands IV ketamine therapy for hard-to-treat depression

Ketamine Wellness NY is offering physician-supervised IV ketamine therapy in Jackson Heights and Great Neck for adults whose depression, anxiety, PTSD and other conditions have not improved with standard treatments. The expansion gives New York-area patients another option as interest grows in ketamine-based care for treatment-resistant illness.

Why it matters: - For adults whose symptoms do not respond to standard antidepressants, IV ketamine can offer a faster treatment path than waiting weeks for another medication trial. - Ketamine Wellness NY is positioning advanced mental health care closer to patients in Queens and Long Island, where access to newer treatments can be limited.

What happened: - Ketamine Wellness NY is providing physician-supervised IV ketamine therapy at two New York metro locations: Jackson Heights, Queens, and Great Neck, Long Island. - The clinic treats adults with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety and panic disorders, PTSD and trauma, obsessive-compulsive disorder, chronic pain and fibromyalgia, and alcohol use disorder. - Dr. Pervaiz Qureshi, MD, leads the clinic. - Qureshi is a board-certified internal medicine physician with more than 30 years of clinical practice. - Qureshi completed medical training at King Edward Medical University and an internal medicine residency at Brooklyn Hospital Center. - Qureshi has been licensed to practice medicine in New York since 1994.

The details: - Conventional antidepressants often take four to six weeks to show effect. - A substantial share of people with major depressive disorder do not respond to standard drug treatment. - The FDA approved esketamine, a ketamine-derived nasal spray sold as Spravato, in March 2019 for treatment-resistant depression. - IV ketamine is given in a clinical setting, where a supervising physician can monitor and adjust the dose in real time. - Ketamine Wellness NY screens patients during an initial consultation before treatment begins. - All infusions at the clinic are done under direct physician supervision. - The Jackson Heights clinic is at 37-20 76th Street. - The Great Neck clinic is at 45 Middle Neck Road, Suite 220. - The Great Neck location serves Nassau County and Western Long Island, including Manhasset, Port Washington, Roslyn and Garden City. - The Jackson Heights location serves Queens, Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Eastern Queens neighborhoods including Forest Hills, Bayside and Whitestone. - The clinic is open seven days a week. - The clinic treats patients across the broader New York metropolitan area. - The clinic website is the company's website. - The clinic also maintains social accounts on Instagram and Facebook.

Between the lines: - The clinic is targeting a gap between patients who have exhausted first-line medications and the smaller number of providers offering ketamine-based care. - Jackson Heights sits in one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse zip codes in the U.S., which makes language access and culturally familiar care especially relevant. - Queens is documented as the most linguistically diverse county in the country, with more than 150 languages spoken in the borough. - Qureshi speaks English and Urdu, which may help the clinic reach more patients in a multilingual market. - The clinic framed its mission around helping patients who may not hear about IV ketamine early in treatment.

What's next: - Ketamine Wellness NY is expected to keep serving patients from Queens, Long Island and the wider New York metro area through its two-location model. - The clinic's physician-supervised setup suggests continued emphasis on monitored in-office treatment rather than at-home or unsupervised care.

The bottom line: - Ketamine Wellness NY is betting that easier access to supervised IV ketamine can fill a persistent treatment gap for patients who have not improved with conventional mental health care.