A Bronx hospital nurse has warned that medical staff are on a ‘suicide mission’ while a paramedic in Queens has said they are deploying battlefield triage to treat coronavirus.
It comes amid a severely deepening crisis in New York, where 40 percent of America’s 4,076 coronavirus deaths have been recorded.
Paramedic Megan Pfeiffer, who answers 911 calls in the hard-hit Queens neighborhood, said battlefield triage techniques were being deployed to decide which patients should live or die.
Kelley Cabrera, a nurse at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx told the New York Daily News that she and her colleagues were on a ‘suicide mission.’
Sean Petty, a pediatric nurse at the same hospital, has been campaigning for his colleagues to get better masks, instead of having to re-use old ones.
‘They went from recommending that COVID-19 be understood as a pathogen needing airborne and contact precautions, to one that was only needed to be on droplet precautions,’ Petty told the paper.
Paramedic Megan Pfeiffer, who answers 911 calls in the hard-hit Queens neighborhood, said: ‘It’s like battlefield triage right now. We’re pretty much bringing patients to the hospital to die.’
‘That led to switching the equipment from needing an N95 mask every time you go care for a patient, to only needing a surgical mask or procedural mask to take care of patients.’
He and other nurses are demanding the CDC, which changed its guidelines to reflect the shortages, are reverted back.
Meanwhile paramedic Pfeiffer said the pandemic’s ferocity was beyond anything she could have imagined.
‘It’s like battlefield triage right now. We’re pretty much bringing patients to the hospital to die.’ Pfeiffer told the New York Post.
‘We know what we signed up for — though we didn’t expect this. It’s very straining. We’re all exhausted.’
The 31-year-old said the hospitals in Queens which she delivers patients to are ‘totally full.’
Shocking footage yesterday revealed chaos inside the Brookdale Hospital Medical Center in Brooklyn where patients line the hallways in their beds and doctors are struggling to keep up with their needs.
The 370-bed hospital has already reached full capacity. One desperate doctor told CBS2 that the hospital had become a ‘medical warzone’.
‘Well, this is a warzone, a medical warzone,’ said Dr. Arabia Mollette, who works in the emergency room. Every day I come, what I see on a daily basis is pain, despair, suffering and healthcare disparities.’
Mollette said that the hospital had faced an influx of more than 100 confirmed coronavirus patients and 70 other possible cases.
Dr. Arabia Mollette (above), who works in the emergency room, pleaded for more ventilators and protective equipment: ‘We need prayer, we need support, we need gowns, we need gloves, we need masks, we need more vents, we need more medical space,’ she said
New Yorkers struck down by the deadly virus were seen lying on beds in the hospital corridors
They are struggling to cope with the demand, she said, pleading for more ventilators and protective equipment.
‘We need prayer, we need support, we need gowns, we need gloves, we need masks, we need more vents, we need more medical space,’ she said.
Mollette also warned of the toll that working on the frontline is taking on medical staff.
‘We need psycho-social support as well. It’s not easy coming in here when you know that’s what you’re getting ready to face,’ she said.
The morgue at Brookdale Hospital has also reached capacity, meaning the pandemic’s victims are now being placed into a refrigerated trailer outside the facility.
Mollette said she had seen many people die from the virus and warned Americans that no one is safe.
‘This virus sees no difference,’ she said. ‘It has nothing to do with age, has nothing to do with access to healthcare, has nothing to do with socio-economics, race or ethnicity. This virus is killing a lot of people.’
New York City’s coronavirus death toll soared past 1,000 on Tuesday as the overwhelmed health system braced itself for carnage.
Dead bodies are loaded onto a truck outside Brooklyn Hospital Center
A temporary hospital is built in Central Park on the East Meadow lawn during the Coronavirus pandemic on March 31
A temporary hospital is built in Central Park on the East Meadow lawn during the Coronavirus pandemic
Among those who died in the city was the first victim under 18, according to the city’s health department.
A somber-sounding Gov. Andrew Cuomo said early Tuesday that more than 300 new deaths had been reported in the state in the previous 24 hours, a number rendered obsolete just hours later by the virus that has infected more than 75,000 statewide.
Deaths from the coronavirus continued to climb steeply in New York, topping 1,500 by Tuesday morning, according to Cuomo.
The city reported before dusk that it has nearly 1,100 deaths alone.
The city is bringing in 250 out-of-town ambulances and 500 paramedics and emergency medical technicians to help its swamped EMS system respond to the coronavirus crisis.
The city’s ambulances are responding to about 6,000 calls a day – 50% more than average. Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said a five-day stretch last week was the busiest in the history of the city’s EMS operation.
So far, 100 ambulances have arrived and the rest are expected by the end of the week. They’re supplied through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
De Blasio said medical personnel and equipment are arriving in the city to meet an expected surge in coronavirus cases next week but more health care workers, equipment and supplies are needed, and he asked anyone who might have a ventilator lying around to contribute it including oral surgeons, plastic surgeons and veterinarians.
Trumps’ comments came hours after Cuomo said the federal government has created a ‘bidding war’ for ventilators that is like ‘like being on eBay’
Chris Cuomo is quarantining in his basement after testing positive for the virus on Tuesday morning
‘This is a war effort, everyone needs to contribute,’ the mayor said. ‘You’ll get it back when this battle is over.’
The outbreak hit close to home for the governor, who spoke early Tuesday of his brother and ‘best friend,’ CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, testing positive for the disease.
‘Luckily we caught it early enough. But it’s my family, it’s your family, it’s all of our families,’ the governor said.
The news is certain to get worse in New York City as the outbreak is expected to peak in the next month.
A temporary hospital built inside a New York City convention center began accepting patients, and a nearby Navy hospital ship was expected to take in patients soon.
Beds at the Jacob Javits Convention Center and the USNS Comfort are designed to take pressure off New York City hospitals as coronavirus cases spike. The combined 2,000 beds were added to handle non-coronavirus patients.
Hospitals in the city were already showing signs of stress. Elmhurst Hospital in Queens was so busy that critically ill COVID-19 patients waited in the emergency room for beds to become available, according to an administrator. Outside other hospitals, workers in protective gear have been loading bodies of coronavirus victims into refrigerated trailers.
The emergency hospital sites at the convention center began taking patients Monday night, according to the governor’s office. The Navy said Tuesday that the ship docked off Manhattan was expected to accept patients soon.
There were more than 10,900 people in New York hospitalized for COVID-19, with at least 2,700 in intensive care. The number of new hospitalizations statewide Monday was at a high since the outbreak: 1,412.
Also, the National Tennis Center in Queens, where the U.S. Open is played, will start housing coronavirus patients next week and will eventually hold 350 coronavirus patients, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
He said patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 but are not in intensive care will be treated at the tennis center to relieve pressure from the overtaxed Elmhurst Hospital, where 13 people died of the virus in one 24-hour period last week.