DOCTORS AND NURSES ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE U.S. CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK ARE PLEADING FOR MORE EQUIPMENT TO TREAT A WAVE OF NEW PATIENTS EXPECTED TO SWAMP CAPACITY AT HOSPITALS IN HOT SPOTS.
PHYSICIANS RECYCLING MASKS, PURCHASING
ESSENTIAL SUPPLIES ON BLACK MARKET
U.S. doctors and nurses on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak on Friday pleaded for more equipment to treat a wave of new patients expected to swamp capacity, going so far as to ask President Donald Trump to invoke emergency powers.
Doctors have called attention to a desperate need for more ventilators, machines that help patients breathe and are widely needed for those suffering from COVID-19, the respiratory ailment caused by the novel coronavirus.
Hospitals in New York, New Orleans and other hot virus spots sounded the alarm about a shortage of medicine, supplies and trained staff as the U.S. caseload surpassed 100,000, with more than 1,500 dead.
That was down from more than 16,000 new cases on Thursday, the largest one-day surge, but kept the United States as the world leader in confirmed cases.
“We are scared,” said Dr. Arabia Mollette of Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn. “We’re trying to fight for everyone else’s life, but we also fight for our lives as well, because we’re also at the highest risk of exposure.”
The United States ranked sixth in deaths with more than 1,500, according to a Reuters tally of official data. Worldwide, confirmed cases rose above 576,000 with 26,455 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
One emergency-room doctor in Michigan, an emerging epicentre of the pandemic, said that he was using one paper face mask for an entire shift due to a shortage and that hospitals in the Detroit area would soon run out of ventilators.
The doctor, Rob Davidson, urged Trump to use the Defense Production Act to procure more test kits and ventilators. Organizations including the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association have publicly urged Trump to invoke the act.
“We have hospital systems here in the Detroit area in Michigan who are getting to the end of their supply of ventilators and have to start telling families that they can’t save their loved ones because they don’t have enough equipment,” Davidson said in a video he posted on Twitter.
New York area doctors say they have had to recycle some protective gear, or resort to the black market.
Dr. Alexander Salerno of Salerno Medical Associates, a general medical practice with several offices in Northern New Jersey, described going through a “broker,” paying $17,000 for masks and other protective equipment that should have cost about $2,500, and picking them up at an abandoned warehouse.
“You don’t get any names. You get just phone numbers to text,” Salerno said. “And so you agree to a term. You wire the money to a bank account. They give you a time and an address to come to.”
With the crisis mounting, Trump has resisted invoking the Defense Production Act, an emergency law granting him broad procurement authority. Instead, he has used Twitter to pressure manufacturers to act on their own.
Trump demanded that General Motors begin producing ventilators “NOW.” He also told Ford to “GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!”
In a separate tweet, Trump said that the federal government had purchased a large quantity of ventilators from a number of companies.
After days of wrangling, the U.S. Congress passed a $2.2 trillion relief package on Friday, sending the bill to Trump, who was expected to promptly sign it into law.
In addition to aiding hospitals, the package will send cash to businesses and unemployed workers suffering from the effects of stay-athome orders that have had the side effect of strangling the economy.
In New York state, where there have been 44,635 cases and 519 deaths, officials plan to build eight temporary hospitals in a campaign to increase the number of hospital beds from 53,000 to 140,000.
A number of hotels in New York City, including the famed Plaza Hotel, the St. Regis and the Four Seasons, will make rooms available to medical workers fighting coronavirus or to non-critical care patients, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
A little luxury would be welcomed by doctors and nurses working long hours while exposing themselves to the virus and coping with the loss of patients.
“This is past a movie plot. Nobody could ever think of this, or be totally prepared for this,” said Eric Neibart, infectious disease specialist and clinical assistant professor at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. “The scale is unbelievable.”
Marney Gruber, an emergency doctor who works in multiple hospitals around New York City, said commonly used medications were in short supply and hospitals were running out of oxygen tanks.
“These are staples in emergency medicine and ICUs — these are your bread and butter, truly, your very basic essentials,” Gruber said.
At least two New York medical schools, New York University and Columbia, have said they will graduate their fourth-year students early so they can begin treating patients with the coronavirus right away.