FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM APRIL 1, 2021 • HEALTH • THE QUEENS COURIER 25
health
Healthcare workers and advocates commemorate
National Doctors’ Day at Elmhurst Hospital
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
aacevedo@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Ahead of this year’s National Doctors’
Day on Tuesday, March 30, Doctors
Council SEIU and NYC Health +
Hospitals celebrated the city’s doctors for
their heroic work throughout the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic at Elmhurst
Hospital.
On March 25, more than three dozen
white coats, several local elected offi -
cials, healthcare advocates and community
members gathered outside of Elmhurst
Hospital — what was the “epicenter of the
epicenter” at the height of the pandemic
last year — to recognize the selfl ess and
dedicated healthcare workers who provided
the best possible care to one of the
hardest-hit neighborhoods in New York
City.
While the event commemorated doctors
and hospital staff for their grit and
lifesaving care, the doctors who spoke
couldn’t help but refl ect on what was a
brutal year on the frontlines.
“Doctors Council SEIU represents
frontline doctors and we know all too well
the devastation over the past year that the
COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the
patients and communities of New York
City, especially those in communities of
color,” said Dr. Frank Proscia, president of
Doctors Council SEIU.
Proscia, who hosted the event, said that
in their organization’s nearly 50-year history,
they “never experienced anything
like this.” He recalled hearing from fellow
doctors about how they had to isolate
from their families so as to not infect
their loved ones and dealt with a lack of
personal protective equipment and short
supply of equipment and space. Th ey also
heard from their family members, who
feared for their lives.
One year into the pandemic, New
York lost more than 50,000 people due
to the virus, including 53 NYC Health
+ Hospitals workers, Proscia noted. An
investigation by Th e Guardian and KHN
reports more than 3,500 deaths among
healthcare workers in the U.S., with 452
in New York alone.
“Th ese essential workers, all of them,
put their lives on the line each and every
day, and they should be commended
for that,” Proscia said. “Th ese people are
examples that this city will get through
this — one way or another, we will get
through this.”
Dr. Jasmin Moshirpur, chief medical
offi cer at Elmhurst Hospital, remembered
she received an email on Feb. 26,
2020, stating that Elmhurst and Bellevue
Hospitals were to receive COVID-19
patients.
Because they dealt with many pandemics
and epidemics in the past, Moshirpur
took it as just another outbreak they had
to deal with, and “Elmhurst’s team, as
usual, is always ready for that.”
But that quickly changed, as Elmhurst
became overwhelmed with patients. She
said they were later able to cope thanks to
the Navy, Army, FEMA and city resources
they called for.
She was glad to report that many many
people were able to walk out of the hospital,
and that they have vaccinated more
than 25,000 people to combat the virus.
NYC Health + Hospitals President and
CEO Dr. Mitchell Katz thanked healthcare
providers for playing a critical role
during the pandemic, and spoke of the
mental toll it’s had on them.
“We all saw death in a way that as doctors
we never anticipated in terms of the
volume. All of us who went into medicine
and became doctors understood that
sometimes we would lose patients, we
also understood that sometimes our profession
would put us at risk — but I don’t
think any of us, before COVID, understood
how great that could be,” Katz said.
Katz added that while it’s understandable
for healthcare workers to think about
how they could’ve done things diff erently
to save more lives, they saved many lives,
nonetheless.
“Th e vast majority of people, even in
the darkest days, left the hospital alive,” he
said. “And had it not been for us intubating
them, oxygenating them, taking care
of them, putting them on medicines, they
wouldn’t have.”
NYC Health + Hospitals treated more
than 160,000 patients, including 4,000
people at the peak of the pandemic in
March and April of 2020, according to
the agency. More than 15,000 COVID-19
patients have returned home since.
Dr. Jasmine Dove, an attending surgeon
at Elmhurst for more than 15 years, spoke
to her fellow “battered heroes of Elmhurst
and H+H hospitals.”
“We were all doctors taking on any and
all roles, and we must acknowledge the
wonderful nurses, respiratory techs, X-ray
techs, pharmacists, housekeeping, food
service, material management, mortuary,
and the list goes on and on — and all of the
silent, invisible staff that keep the hospital
running for us during this time and all others,”
Dove said. “And we did this, isolating
from our loved ones, just like our patients.
Terrifi ed of dying, just like our patients.
Devastated on the days when it felt like
we could not save anyone from this virus.”
She said doctors and healthcare workers
never would have described themselves
as heroes.
“Nerds and geeks in white coats having
aha moments perhaps, but not superheroes,”
she said. “Well, aft er the past year,
I can think of no other word or way to
describe you or I or us.”
State Senators Toby Ann Stavisky and
Jessica Ramos, as well as Assemblywoman
Catalina Cruz, attended the event to
thank the doctors, physicians and nurses,
and vowed to fi ght any cuts in funding
for the public health system in this year’s
state budget.
Cruz commended the doctors and
healthcare workers for fi nding the
strength to fi ght back the virus.
“You were trained to save lives, you were
trained to help our community, but what
we went through last year, I have absolutely
no clue how you did it,” Cruz said. “And
for that we are eternally grateful, for that
we are in awe.”
She spoke about her own family contracting
COVID-19, and how the doctors
at Elmhurst gave her hope that they’d be
OK and helped them recover. She thanked
them for treating all patients — regardless
of their immigration status, their language
or their background — with the best care.
Cruz, who a few days prior joined the
New York State Nurses Association to
protest Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposed
$600 million budget cuts to public
hospitals, said they ensure the $20 million
cuts proposed for Elmhurst Hospital
won’t occur.
“You deserve better than that,” Cruz
said. “It’s not enough to go out at 7 o’clock
and clap, enough of that. Now, we have to
do more.”
Ramos refl ected on how the state should
have left healthcare professionals lead the
response to the pandemic and emphasized
the need for safe staffi ng in hospitals.
“If the pandemic has taught us anything,
it’s that we have to listen to you and
the New York State Nurses Association
when we’re told that we need a better
staff -to-patient ratio, that we need more
hospital beds,” Ramos said. “It’s not lost
on us that we’ve closed fi ve hospitals in
Queens over the past 20 years … it’s
a damn shame that here in Queens, the
most diverse corner of the country where
we all show everybody else how much
we care about each other, we don’t put
our money where our mouth is. So that’s
going to have to change, especially as we
continue to push for the New York Health
Act, because that’s really what we need.
We need every single New Yorker to
have guaranteed high-quality healthcare
in New York state.”
On behalf of Queens Borough President
Donovan Richards, Deputy President
Rhonda Binda said the borough owes a “huge
debt of gratitude to the doctors who have and
continue to give so much” of themselves to
the well-being of the community.
“Th e great work of Elmhurst staff
attending COVID-19 patients, along with
their skill and dedication in truly addressing
other health concerns, is inspirational
and worth acknowledging and celebrating
not only today, but every day,” Binda said.
Elmhurst Hospital’s new CEO Helen
Arteaga Landaverde spoke about witnessing
an “aha” moment from a group of residents,
and the wave of gratitude she felt,
not only as the hospital’s leader, but also
as a patient.
“Th ose sparks just made my day …
Th is is what making doctors of the future
means,” Landaverde said, noting that
those sparks take time and oft entimes
sleepless nights. “I know you’re here when
we need to call you, you never say no, and
I know it’s because of that spark — that
spark where you fi gure something out,
not for yourself but for others.”
Photo by Gabriele Holtermann
Elmhurst Hospital staff attends a ceremony thanking physicians for their dedication during the
COVID-19 pandemic ahead of National Doctors’ Day at Elmhurst Hospital.
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