April 5, 2020 Your Neighborhood — Your News®
Month xx–xx, 2019
LOCAL
CLASSIFIEDS
PAGE 7
Medical
masks in
short supply
at hospitals
BY ROSE ADAMS
Healthcare workers at a southern
Brooklyn hospital are given
only one face mask per week as
the number of COVID-19 patients
surges, sources say.
“Every day before my shift
I’m ridden with anxiety,” said an
emergency room provider at Coney
Island Hospital, who spoke
on the condition of anonymity in
order to speak freely about the
hospital’s conditions. “We’re really
risking our lives and we’re
not being protected.”
Emergency service providers
at Coney Island Hospital, a cityrun
hospital in Sheepshead Bay,
must sign in once a week in order
to get one N95 face mask, which
they’re expected to use for fi ve
days, according to four different
workers at the hospital.
The practice puts the lives
of workers and patients in danger,
since masks are supposed
to be changed every time a
worker comes into contact with
a COVID-19 patient, employees
said.
“After a 12-hour shift, this
Thank you!
Brooklynites leave kind
messages outside hospitals
1,000 bed hospital coming to Red Hook Cruise Terminal
BY BEN VERDE
The cavernous Brooklyn Cruise
Terminal will be transformed
into a fi eld hospital in the near future,
Governor Andrew Cuomo announced
Friday, March 27, as New
York State rushes to increase its
hospital capacity while cases of the
coronavirus skyrocket.
The cruise terminal in Red
Hook’s Clinton Wharf will add
1,000 beds to the state’s roster, as
it attempts to increase its hospital
capacity from roughly 53,000 to
140,000 before the outbreak’s peak,
which offi cials estimate could only
be three weeks away.
Along with the cruise terminal,
Cuomo announced a number
of other fi eld hospitals in the outer
boroughs and suburbs.
“I want to have one in every borough,”
the governor said. “I want
to have one for The Bronx, Queens,
Staten Island, Brooklyn.”
Two fi eld hospitals are currently
in place in Manhattan, after the arrival
of the USNS Comfort on Monday
and the installation of 1,000
beds in the Javits Center by the National
Guard within one week.
The Downtown Brooklyn Marriott
and Brooklyn Center Nursing
Home in Crown Heights are also being
considered as fi eld hospital locations,
according to Cuomo.
Brooklyn hospitals are among
those struggling to meet the enormous
demand. Staff at Brookdale
Hospital, which has over 100 confi
rmed COVID-19 cases as of this
weekend, described the situation
as a “war zone” in a recent CNN report.
Continued on page 4
BY ROSE ADAMS
A group of Brooklynites
left kind messages outside
Maimonides Medical Center
in Borough Park the week
of March 23, thanking the
hospital staff for their work
during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Thank you for showing
up,” read one of the chalk
messages, accompanied with
a heart.
Hospital employees arrived
for work on March
26 to discover the grateful
messages, which were written
in chalk along the pavement
outside the hospital’s
entrance on 10th Avenue
near 48th Street, according
to spokeswoman Eileen
Tynion.
Inspired by the act of
kindness, staffers from the
pediatrics unit went down
the block to the hospital’s
emergency room, and wrote
uplifting messages outside
that read, “We’re all in this
together,” “You are brave,
you are strong,” and “Maimo
strong.”
Workers at Maimonides
also took the time to thank
each other for their hard
work and boost their spirits
during the pandemic —
which has pushed the limits
of local hospitals and threatened
the lives of its workers.
“I would like to thank
all of you from the bottom
of my heart for all you have
done and continue to do for
the patients in the hospital,”
said Libby, an employee who
didn’t give her last name. “I
consider each and every one
of you a hero.”
Hospitals in Brooklyn, and
around the country, have been
overrun in recent weeks due to
the massive infl ux in coronavirus
patients, forcing medical
workers to work extra-long
hours and resort to troubling
safety measures — including
reusing protective masks
and crowding hospital rooms
with potentially-infectious patients.
This anonymous message, along with others, was found outside Maimonides Medical
Center. Photo by Lorraine Carita
The Red Hook Cruise Terminal will
house a 1,000-bed hopsital.
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