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COURIER L 2 IFE, APRIL 3-9, 2020
‘WE’RE RISKING
Hospitals reel from spike of
Disturbing video shows
hospital staff lifting
bodies with a forklift
Video shows staff loading dead
bodies into a tractor-trailer.
Photo by Corey Teague
healthcare system.
In response to the footage,
the hospital’s communication
offi ce released a statement
saying the city’s Offi ce
of Emergency Management
supplied a refrigerated truck
parked on Ashland Place
to serve as an ancillary
morgue due to the sharp increase
in deaths as a result of
COVID-19.
“This is needed to accommodate
the tragic spike
in deaths, placing a strain
on the entire system of care
— from hospitals to funeral
homes. Grieving families
cannot quickly make arrangements,
and their loved
ones who have passed are remaining
in hospitals longer,
thus the need for this accommodation,”
the statement
read.
Hospitals are short on supplies amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Coney hospital
workers given one
face mask per week
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.
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
As the death toll from the
novel coronavirus continues
to rise, hospitals have gone
to frightening lengths to deal
with the surge — including
at Brooklyn Hospital Center
in Fort Greene, where staff
resorted to using a forklift
to load dead bodies into an
18-wheeler tractor-trailer on
March 29.
Video captured from the
ghastly scene shows hospital
workers unloading the bodies
into the trailer parked
on Ashland Place between
Myrtle and Dekalb avenues
around 10:40 am, according
to the man fi lming from his
car.
“They’re putting the bodies
in an 18-wheeler,” said
the audibly distressed man.
“My hand is shaking because
it’s hard to look at this right
here, what I’m seeing right
now, it’s hard to believe this,
but y’all this is for real.”
The tactic is becoming
dishearteningly common
around the city, as many
hospitals have begun using
trucks as makeshift
morgues, a gambit unseen in
New York since 9/11.
Brooklyn Hospital Center
on March 17 unveiled a tent
facility to pre-screen potentially
infected patients to reduce
the hospitalized population
and ease the load on the
“We’re really risking
our lives and we’re not being
protected.”
Emergency service providers
at Coney Island Hospital,
a city-run 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
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