N.Y. top doc: We did just fine vs. bug

ALBANY — New York’s top health official defended the state’s coronavirus response Wednesday despite complaints from nurses and advocates who said funding and equipment were hard to come by at the height of the pandemic.

During an occasionally combative hearing, state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker claimed that nurses and doctors had enough personal protective equipment as they cared for the crush of COVID-19 patients that flooded overburdened hospitals in the spring.

“There seems to be a disconnect at least from my perspective between hospital administrators — what they were telling you and nurses who were on the nightly news saying very specifically that there was not enough PPE equipment within the hospitals,” Assemblyman Dan Quart (D-Manhattan) told the top Cuomo administration official.

Zucker said the state provided 24 million pieces of PPE and made more available for hospitals hit hardest by the outbreak, adding that he never personally heard any complaints from health care workers.

“I can tell you that in those conversations with those physicians and those nurses, they said, ‘We have the PPE that is needed,’ ” he said. “If there was a problem they should come back to us and we will make sure it is available.”

Nursing advocates and union officials, including New York State Nurses Association President Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, testified during the virtual hearing that many hospital employees were forced to reuse scarce masks and gloves or use makeshift protective equipment.

“Nobody should’ve died taking care of these patients and many did,” Sheridan-Gonzalez said.

Others said they hope that the state has learned its lessons from the pandemic and will be prepared for the future.

“We have to take advantage of this time now to prepare for the second wave,” 1199SEIU’s Veronica Turner-Briggs said.