On NYC’s front lines, health workers worry they will be next
Associated PressNEW YORK — A nurse died from coronavirus after working nonstop for weeks at a hospital where staffers frustrated with dwindling supplies posed in gowns made of trash bags. He worked at the same hospital where three nurses, frustrated at the scarcity of supplies, posted pictures of themselves on social media wearing makeshift garbage bag protective gowns, an image splashed on Thursday’s New York Post cover with the headline: “TREATED LIKE TRASH.” A nurse who worked with Kelly for eight years fell ill at the same time. Andrew Cuomo acknowledges the ranks of health care workers are thinning while also claiming “no hospital, no nurse, no doctor can say legitimately, ‘I don’t have protective equipment.’” Medical specialists from other areas have been redeployed to emergency rooms and ICUs, and a volunteer force of 40,000 retired doctors, nurses, therapists and technicians will soon answer the call for reinforcements. Barbara Rosen, a registered nurse in New Jersey for more than four decades and a vice president of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees union, said members are “scared to death.” “You’re being torn between going out and doing your duty, what you were born to do, which is to take care of sick patients, and getting sick yourself and bringing it home to your family,” she said. It’s like going into a three-alarm fire with a water pistol.” Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed Thursday to get health care workers the supplies they need: “One way or another, we’re going to get them to you every day,” he said, adding that the city has enough supplies for this week, at least.