Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
For Hardest-Hit NYC Hospitals, The Drop In Patients Is 'Like Someone Turned Off The Hose'
The New York Times: Hospitals Move Into Next Phase As New York Passes Viral Peak
Across New York City, hospitals have moved into a new phase in their battle against the coronavirus. In the city that was hit hardest by the pandemic in the United States, the number of new patients and the daily death toll have dropped sharply. Many of the refrigerated trucks filled with bodies are gone. Doctors no longer routinely plead for help in makeshift protective gear. The emergency room at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, once overwhelmed, treats barely a third of the people it did before the outbreak. (Fink, 5/20)
The New York Times: From Chaos To ‘Scary Silence’: Elmhurst Hospital After The Coronavirus Surge
Elmhurst Hospital in Queens had been inundated by patients. The Times went back to see how the staff was recovering, and planning for the the possibility of another wave. (Fink, Schaff and Laffin, 5/20)
The Wall Street Journal: New York To Allow Family Visits For Some Hospitalized Covid-19 Patients
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a pilot program that allows 16 hospitals throughout the state to resume letting patients have visitors. The move comes after thousands of patients were left to struggle or die alone during the height of the novel coronavirus pandemic because of concerns about spreading the illness. “It is terrible to have someone in the hospital and then that person is isolated, not being able to see their family and friends,” Mr. Cuomo said Tuesday. (Passy, 5/19)
In other news on hospitals —
Los Angeles Times: L.A. Surge Hospital For Coronavirus Patients To Close In June
The state-funded Los Angeles Surge Hospital, which has seen relatively few patients since it opened five weeks ago to treat an anticipated overflow of COVID-19 cases, will close at the end of June, a source in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration said Tuesday. The hospital, located on the grounds of the shuttered St. Vincent Medical Center near downtown Los Angeles, was set up to handle as many as 270 patients a day. But the hospital has never had more than 25 patients at a time, officials said. (Curwen, 5/19)
Boston Globe: COVID-19 Patients Are Recovering, But With Nowhere To Go
After long weeks in intensive care units — breathing through ventilators and fed through tubes, caught in a constant battle between life and death — some COVID-19 patients are fortunate enough to turn a corner.But surviving the worst of it is only the beginning of recovery. Now, as state statistics show hospitalizations in Massachusetts beginning to descend and intensive care units prepare to transfer thousands of those hospitalized, some worry that the lesser-known facilities where patients can slowly recover will soon be overwhelmed. (Moore, 5/19)
Kaiser Health News: The Pandemic Is Hurting Pediatric Hospitals, Too
Children have largely escaped the ravages of COVID-19, but children’s hospitals have not eluded the financial pain the pandemic has wrought on health care providers. Pediatric hospitals offered themselves as backups to their adult counterparts in case of a surge of coronavirus patients. They suspended nonemergency surgeries and stockpiled protective gear and virus test kits, according to hospital executives and financial analysts. (Wolfson, 5/19)
