April 19, 2020 Your Neighborhood — Your News®
Month xx–xx, 2019
LOCAL
CLASSIFIEDS
PAGE 7
Brooklyn
ambulances
delayed, EMTs
short staffed
BY JESSICA PARKS
Ambulances in
Brooklyn are being
delayed by up to two
hours as emergency
rooms are overrun with a
massive infl ux of patients infected
with the novel coronavirus,
according to statistics
from a fi rst responders union.
“Generally an ambulance
used to get in and out between
20 to 30 minutes, now it’s like
an hour to two hours depending
on the severity,” said Vinny
Variale, FDNY EMT and president
of the Uniformed EMS Offi
cers Union.
Protocol requires the city’s
paramedics to wait with patients
until the hospital has an
available bed — and the aboveaverage
wait times force crucial
emergency services to be held up
in hospital parking lots, rather
than responding to other emergency
calls.
“Longer wait times keep an
ambulance at the hospital longer,
and unable to go back in service,”
Variale said. “I can’t respond to
Continued on page 4
Fed up on the
front line
Local nurses demand
help amid COVID-19
Nurses at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center rallied to demand help amid the coronavirus
pandemic.
Cobble Hill man tracks Trader Joe’s line on Twitter
shirt-clad employees.
“It was really just boredom,
looking out the window every
day,” said Jacob Shwirtz, who
lives across the street from the
Atlantic Avenue food seller. “At
one point I fi gured, why not make
it a useful service for my neighbors.”
Shwirtz, who is unaffi liated
with the California-based grocery
Continued on page 1
BY KEVIN
DUGGAN
Nurses and
administrators
at the Wyckoff
Heights Medical
Center on
April 10 called
on government
offi cials to supply
the hospital
with more staff,
equipment, and
COVID-19 tests
as the facility
grapples with
a surge in patients
due to the
viral outbreak.
The lack of suffi cient staff
and supplies has left workers
at the hospital on Bushwick’s
Stockholm Street scrambling to
adjust to the new conditions, according
to one nurse, who said
that staff were given scant preparation
to fi ght the virus.
“There was no retraining,
no anything,” said Dalia Branford.
“It was an absolute nightmare.
I literally cried at the end
of my shift.”
Branford has been working
as a pediatric nurse for the
past decade, but had to relearn
treating adults when she found
her pediatric unit had been converted
into a coronavirus facility.
“I had to relearn it while I
have a patient who is my responsibility,”
Branford said.
Another nurse in the hospital’s
intensive care unit said
that she and her colleagues are
spread troublingly thin as the
nurse-to-patient ratios have
more than doubled, forcing
nurses to care for upwards of
four patients at a time — many
of which are in serious conditions
struggling with the respiratory
disease.
Continued on page 4
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
He’s putting the line online!
A Cobble Hill man has begun
updating neighbors about the
line outside Trader Joe’s Court
Street outpost using the Twitter
handle @TraderJoesLine, allowing
would-be shoppers to assess
the wait time before heading to
their beloved emporium of discounted
groceries and Hawaiian
chain, posts updates on request
— color-coded in green,
yellow, or red to signal on the
amount of shoppers waiting to
get in the store, which has been
overrun amid the outbreak of
COVID-19.
“Even before the pandemic, it
would be a super popular Trader
Joe’s, but over the past few weeks
there’s always been a line,” he
said.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic,
the lines have stretched
several dozen people long, sometimes
snaking all around the entire
block, according to the line
guru.
“Last Saturday, there were
well over 100 people wrapping
around the entire block, that was
insane,” said Shwirtz.
Shwirtz checks out the Trader Joe’s
line from his window.
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