To successfully fight coronavirus, New York hospitals will require fast and reliable tests; quarantine and isolation facilities; ICU beds and respirators, personal protective gear for staff, and enough staff to have dedicated teams for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients. Right now, New York doesn’t have enough of those things, sources said.“The isolation beds are constantly full,” said one nurse practitioner. “They’ve resorted to putting up tents in the halls of the emergency department to isolate people. Our hospital system just isn’t equipped for something like this.”Without drastic action, the nurse practitioner said the city will soon not be able to house everyone who is in need of help. “It’s very obvious we don’t have enough space for these patients,” the nurse practitioner said. The overflow could cause issues for not only those with coronavirus, but people who need traditional medical care. “People don’t just stop having strokes and heart attacks because there’s a pandemic.”In order to create more hospital beds, another doctor said he and others are pushing for hospitals to learn from China and create separate facilities to isolate people who have tested positive for coronavirus and keep hospital staff and other patients safe. So far, talks have not led to any concrete action. “We can do this. We have these colleges all around us that are now empty. I don’t understand. We’re not a third-world country. We’re able to mobilize when it’s needed, but everything is mired in this bureaucracy,” he said. “I feel like I’m living in bizarro world.”“They’ve resorted to putting up tents in the halls of the emergency department to isolate people. Our hospital system just isn’t equipped for something like this.”
“It’s hard to justify,” the hospital staffer said. “But they’re making money off of those surgeries. If you shut down the whole [operating room], you’re shutting down a huge revenue source for the hospital.”The situation has been made worse by the general public’s frantic desire to purchase or otherwise obtain personal protective equipment normally reserved for health care professionals, causing shortages at hospitals around the country.Of particular concern is a lack of N95 masks. The masks—designed to fit snugly on the face—are critical for health care providers and other people working directly with infected patients, but have become an object of desire among coronavirus-related panic. One New York doctor who spoke to VICE said that boxes of N95 masks had even been stolen from the hospital emergency department.“I don’t understand. We’re not a third-world country. We’re able to mobilize when it’s needed, but everything is mired in this bureaucracy."
Doctors in some cases are being encouraged by hospital administrators to only wear masks after a patient has tested positive for COVID-19, a suggestion that appalled those who spoke to VICE. With so few coronavirus tests available nationwide, and the length of time it takes to get results, doctors and nurses expect to come into contact with COVID-19 positive patients well before their tests have come back positive.“If we don't have adequate [personal protective equipment], you're just asking for an even bigger disaster, because once you start knocking us out, and we have to be quarantined or we get infected, then we can’t work,” one of the doctors said.“If we don't have adequate [personal protective equipment], you're just asking for an even bigger disaster, because once you start knocking us out, and we have to be quarantined or we get infected, then we can’t work."
“If growing numbers of nurses are not able to be at the bedside because they were exposed to COVID-19 unnecessarily at work, everyone’s health is put in jeopardy. Steps we take now can save lives down the road,” Kane wrote.The NYSNA has also said it believes that the virus is more transmittable by air than the CDC is currently claiming, and that N95 masks alone may not provide enough protection. A statement on the organization’s website argues that health care workers should wear full-body personal protective equipment, like the kind worn for Ebola and other airborne viruses, when treating confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 until it’s confirmed that health care workers are not at risk."Face shields should be reused unless broken—this needs to be message."
The doctor said he feels as if the public still hasn’t come to terms with how much damage the virus can do to people of all ages. “There’s still this idea that if you feel well you can’t spread it and if you’re under 60, it will be mild with no permanent damage.” Data from the C.D.C shows that nearly 40 percent of people sick enough to be hospitalized with coronavirus were between the ages of 20 and 54 years old.Already, the doctor has witnessed young men experience cardiovascular complications from the virus, he said. “There are cases where the patient looks like they’re recovering from the lung part of the disease. They’re getting better and then suddenly they have severe heart failure. Within a day or two they go into cardiac arrest and die.” He said it’s possible this is the result of viral myocarditis—inflammation of the heart caused by a viral infection—but with such a new virus, it’s difficult to know for sure.“I keep telling myself it’s a small number of cases,” he said. “But yes, I’m scared.”Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.“Part of me wants to take my spouse and child, run away and never look back. I know I signed up for this and I have a duty to my community. But it’s hard. It’s really hard. I’m struggling.”