WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES APRIL 16, 2020 7
Nurses at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center
demand more supplies to fight COVID-19
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
Nurses and administrators at
the Wyckoff Heights Medical
Center on the Brooklyn/
Queens border on Friday called on
government officials 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 sufficient 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 fight 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 very 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.
“You do what needs to be done,
but you now have to split your time
between four patients. You move
from one to the next, it’s almost
like an assembly line,” said Coleen
Peters. “Sometimes it’s so busy you
don’t have time for bathroom breaks
or lunch.”
The hospital has also struggled
to provide the necessary amount
of personal protective equipment,
such as masks, face shields, and
gowns, according to Branford.
Staff are only provided with one
N95 mask and one pair of scrubs per
12-hour shift, and she said she’s had
to use the same medical face shield
for the past five shifts.
“If I’m perspiring through it where
it’s literally clinging to my skin, you
can’t ask me to re-wear it,” Branford
said. “It’s not sanitary. I’m going to
make myself ill, my co-workers, and
my patients.”
The protesters demanded that
more frontline healthcare workers
get tested for COVID-19, because of
their high chance of exposure to the
A protester outside Wyckoff Heights Medical Center on April 10. Photo courtesy of Corey Finger, NYSNA
virus, which has already cost the life
of one of their co-workers, according
to Branford.
“This is horrible given that we
live in the 21st century and in a first
world country,” she said.
The hospital — which registered
the first coronavirus-related
death in New York City on March
14 — has been struggling to secure
resources as it competes with other
larger healthcare providers, according
to a press release by the
New York State Nurses Association,
which organized a rally to highlight
the issue on April 10.
Staff also recently set up a makeshift
morgue in refrigerated trailers
on Stanhope Street to store the
increasing number of dead bodies.
Friday’s protesters demanded that
Governor Andrew Cuomo fast-track
distribution of tests and protective
equipment to the hospitals hardest
hit by the health crisis, and for President
Donald Trump to authorize
the Defense Production Act, which
would allow the federal government
to force private companies to produce
medical equipment to combat
the pandemic.
Cuomo announced Friday that he
was ramping up antibody testing and
that the state is on track to conduct
1,000 of those per day by April 17, and
double that the following week, but
said that the government would need
to scale up to testing “in the millions”
in order to tackle the virus.
Wyckoff Heights Medical Center
did not immediately respond to
requests for comment.
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