Supply shortage vexes clinic owner
The novel coronavirus pandemic has been tough on small businesses, many of which, being nonessential, have had to close.
But Dr. Nabil Salib’s small business — which is an essential one — is facing a special set of pandemic woes.
Salib, who owns the myDoc urgent care facility in Forest Hills, is seeing his business increase, but feels inadequately supplied to face the onslaught of patients that’s sure to come.
“I consider myself a soldier in this war. I am charging into the battle with my staff,” Salib said.
But he is worried about the virus overwhelming his clinic — and the entire system.
“We have been waiting for the regular surgical masks for the last three weeks,” he said. “We are also very short on coronavirus testing kits.”
Salib is particularly worried that, because his is a small business, that he will be last in line to receive the kits.
His facility, which is open 12 hours a day, has seen its number of patients roughly double over the past week.
“I used to consider 30 patients in a day a good day. Now we’re past 50 a day,” he said.
“There’s definitely a lot more respiratory patients,” he added. “People coming in with cold symptoms and cough congestion. There’s a lot of anxiety.”
Salib said he is “Lysoling” his office every hour, including every door knob, chair or surface, preparing for an attack that could fell his patients and colleagues.
Luckily, so far none of Salib’s patients, nor his staff of about a dozen, have tested positive for the coronavirus.
“But it is inevitable; it is only a matter of time that someone will get it,” he says.
Salib, who began his urgent facility some three years ago, is also concerned about how this virus will affect him.
“I am thinking of isolating myself; that it might be best for my family if I go to live in a hotel,” he said.