NEW YORK — Respiratory infections are spreading across the nation after the vacations. Emergency room visits and deaths are on the upward thrust national in comparison to final week.
Nurses at one New York City sanatorium say their emergency room is so overcrowded, it is hanging the protection of sufferers and body of workers at possibility.
Stretchers quilt each sq. foot of the ER at Montefiore Medical Center within the Bronx. An ER that with ease treats 60 sufferers now has greater than 200.
“This is truly a patient safety emergency and they have to do something,” one nurse stated.
Nurses stated the sanatorium has been so overcrowded those previous couple of weeks, they depart the workday bruised from having to squeeze between stretchers.
“It’s almost as if we’re playing a game of Tetris to try and get around that room,” nurse Michelle Gonzalez stated.
When requested how the present conditions examine to top COVID, nurse Nicole Camacho stated, “Just as bad. Like, we’re right there neck and neck.”
The high quality of care in a hallway, they are saying, does no longer examine to that during an actual mattress in an actual room.
“Private things like a GYN exam. That should not be happening in the middle of the hallway. I’m ashamed that’s the level of care we’re providing to this community,” Gonzalez stated.
One yr after those similar nurses went on strike, they are saying their management is failing sufferers and body of workers.
When requested how extra space may also be made, nurse Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez stated, “During COVID, they created many, many more units on an emergency basis and we have identified space they can use right now. When we raised the issue to the hospital, they were silent and then a few weeks later they converted it into a ballroom.”
Hospitalizations are up around the state presently. Montefiore is in an area with a poverty charge that is just about double the remainder of town.
“The demographics have a lot to do with it. People here are sicker and therefore come to here more,” case supervisor Shaiju Kalathil stated.
“Here, we are supposed to be ‘Do no harm.’ That’s why we became nurses, to give that loving care, and we’re not able to do it,” Sheridan-Gonzalez stated.
Nurses stated they worry their sufferers gets worse if the location does not recuperate.
CBS New York reached out to Montefiore a number of instances for remark, nevertheless it has no longer equipped any reaction to the nurses’ claims.