Salute to Doctors and Hospitals
By Nelson A. King
State Sen. Zellnor Y. Myrie has
called on city, state, and federal
health officials to ensure equitable
distribution of federal funds for city
hospitals.
In a letter sent on Tuesday, Myrie,
who represents the 20th Senatorial
District in Brooklyn, demands “a
transparent and equitable distribution”
of the more than $5 billion in
funding authorized by the federal
department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) for “hot spot” hospitals.
“New York City ‘hot spot’ hospitals,
including the two public hospitals
I represent (Kings County and the
University Hospital of Brooklyn) were
already subject to state budget cuts
in the middle of this pandemic,” the
letter reads.
“Our communities, mostly black
and brown and already devastated
disproportionately by the virus, cannot
afford another budgetary blow by
way of an unfair allocation of federal
dollars,” the letter adds. “My hope is
that this ‘hot spot’ allocation is but a
first step in commensurate relief.
“I urge our federal, state, and city
health departments to work together
to ensure a fair distribution of hospital
funding, particularly in light
of previous and looming budget cuts
proposed by the state,” the letter continues.
According to HHS, each hospital
should receive funding equal to
$76,975 per admission.
Based on the at least 12,982 hospitalizations
in Brooklyn and the federal
“hot spot” formula, Myrie said New
York City hospitals should receive at
least $3.7 billion, with Brooklyn hospitals
receiving at least $632 million
of that allocation.
In March, Myrie joined 23 elected
officials from Brooklyn in writing
Caribbean L 22 ife, May 15-21, 2020
By Nelson A. King
As the city rapidly expands its testing
capacity, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday
announced new self-swab testing
at NYC Health + Hospitals testing sites
across the five boroughs.
The mayor said self-swab testing will
minimize contact between patients and
healthcare workers, allowing the city to
test more New Yorkers without putting
healthcare workers and patients at further
risk.
To ensure all confirmed cases are
promptly treated, he said the city will
also hire 1,000 contact tracers immediately
to help trace, isolate, and support
these individuals.
“Defeating this virus begins and ends
with our ability to test quickly and
safely,” de Blasio said. “We are working
to ensure that every New Yorker who
needs a test will get one with speed and
Nurses in ICU at NYC Health Hospitals. NYC Health Hospitals
efficiency, beginning with those who
are most vulnerable and at risk for serious
illness.”
He said self-collection will be available
at NYC Health + Hospital testing
sites by the end of this week.
In addition to minimizing contact
between patient and healthcare workers,
the mayor said self-swab collection
will increase the capacity of existing
test sites from the current rate of 15 per
hour to up to 20 per hour.
De Blasio said over 5,000 New Yorkers
have been tested across the eight
NYC Health + Hospitals testing sites
that are currently operational citywide.
Meantime, the mayor said jobs have
been advertised for people with public
health backgrounds to investigate and
trace COVID-19 cases and contacts.
He said the city is looking to hire
1,000 people by the end of May with an
immediate start date.
Details on the scope of work, job
requirements, salary, benefits, and how
to apply available at: https://fphnyc.org/
about/careers/.
The mayor said admissions for suspected
COVID-19 cases at hospitals
citywide continue to decline. On April
24, there were only 122 admissions
citywide.
He also said the daily number of people
in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) across
NYC Health + Hospitals with suspected
cases of COVID-19 continues to decline.
On Monday, 766 people are in H+H
ICU’s citywide.
De Blasio said the number of individuals
testing positive for the virus at
the City’s public health lab increased
to 52 percent. The current number of
individuals testing positive in private
labs is 29 percent.
By Nelson A. King
To accommodate the surge in patients
amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic,
NYC Health + Hospitals says it
has expanded the Intensive Care Unit
(ICU) capacity system wide.
NYC Health + Hospitals said the
immediate focus is on NYC Health +
Hospitals/Elmhurst, NYC Health + Hospitals/
Lincoln and NYC Health + Hospitals/
Bellevue.
The city’s public hospital system said
it had aimed to bring on a total of 3,000
additional ICU beds by May 1, nearly
tripling the base ICU capacity of its 11
hospitals.
Over the past few weeks, NYC Health
+ Hospitals said the city has leveled the
COVID-19 surge across the system by
transferring 193 non-ICU and 43 ICU
COVID-19 patients from NYC Health +
Hospitals/Elmhurst, Queens, Lincoln,
Woodhull and Kings County hospitals
to other public hospitals with more
capacity.
Each facility identified usable space,
based on surge planning exercise started
in February.
“Our city faces unprecedented challenges
in the weeks ahead,” said Mayor
Bill de Blasio. “Every ventilator and ICU
bed can save life, which is why we are
marshalling every possible resource to
our hospitals in record time.
“Still, the federal government must
step up and provide the reinforcements
we need. The battle will be long, and we
cannot fight it alone,” he added.
President and chief executive officer
of NYC Health + Hospitals Dr. Mitchell
Katz noted that Gov. Andrew Cuomo
has called for hospitals to prepare for
the surge, “and New York City’s public
hospitals have been more than rising
to the challenge of caring for the large
number of COVID-19 patients needing
intensive care.
“We’re proud to be able to provide
these incredibly important services at
this critical moment in our city’s life,”
he said. “And we will continue to work
with city, state, federal officials and the
private health systems in the city to
secure as many more beds, health care
personnel and equipment we need to
prepare for the peak time of the epidemic
which is projected to occur sometime
in April or early May.”
Throughout this initial surge, NYC
Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst added 82
ICU beds, bringing the total of available
beds to 111.
NYC Health + Hospitals said the
hospital will bring on 30 additional ICU
beds in the coming weeks.
It said NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln
has added 80 ICU beds, and will
bring on an additional 34 in the coming
weeks.
NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue has
added 61 beds, with 52 more on the
way.O
ver the course of the month of April,
NYC Health + Hospitals was expected to
create nearly 762 ICU beds — more than
any other hospital system in the country
— and add nearly 2,500 medical beds.
It said NYC Health + Hospitals/
Woodhull will add 91 medical and surgical
beds and 23 ICU beds; NYC Health +
Hospitals/Queens will add 373 medical
beds and 44 ICU beds; NYC Health +
Hospitals/North Central Bronx will add
77 medical beds and 31 ICU beds; and
NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County
will add 292 medical beds and 117 ICU
beds.
Brooklyn Democratic Sen. Zellnor
Y. Myrie. https://www.nysenate.gov
NYC Health + Hospitals triples ICU capacity
New self-swab testing at NYC Health + Hospitals
Myrie calls for
fair ‘hot spot’
funding for
hospitals
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