Emergency field hospital constructed in NY's Central Park to admit COVID-19 patients

A 68-bed emergency field hospital has been set up in New York's Central Park in the US to admit coronavirus patients, as per media reports. The East Meadow lawn was transformed by the volunteers into wards to cater to the overflow from the Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Queens hospital, New York, as the situation worsened in the state with over 60,000 cases, and 1000 deaths due to the COVID-19 disease. 

Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio said during a press conference, that the makeshift medical centers were being transformed into respiratory care units as hospitals were out of their capacity to take more patients. He said that it was the collaboration between Samaritan’s Purse and Mount Sinai Health System, to share the burden. The team trucked in four trailers of gear, which includes tents, beds, personal protective equipment, and at least 10 ventilators to attend to critically ill, he added. Franklin Graham, the organization’s leadership reportedly said that a team of over 70 health care professionals from across the US will be headed by Dr. Elliott Tenpenny, who has previously treated patients of Ebola in West Africa, Syrian refugees in Iraq and earthquake victims in Ecuador. 

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Most calls for respiratory distress

According to reports, New York accounts for 42 per cent of the impact from the coronavirus. Further scale in the impact is predicted in the weeks ahead, as more residents are being tested for the virus. Emergency helplines in the state have been overwhelmed with over 7,000 phone calls per day, setting up volume record, as the crisis inundates the medical facilities, and the first responders swarm the state around the clock. A Brooklyn paramedic told the US media that most coronavirus calls across the state were from patients reporting the respiratory distress or high temperature. She was further said that having been sent home to quarantine, the patients experienced organ failure and cardiac arrest. She stressed that the dearth of medical supervision was getting patients to the point where they had “started to decompensate”. 

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