Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Health Workers On Front Lines: 'Every Day You Go In And You’re Like, Can I Do This For One More Day?'
The New York Times: Hundreds Of Miles From Home, Nurses Fight The Coronavirus On New York’s Front Lines
Each night at dusk, in an otherwise desolate Times Square, hundreds of nurses in blue scrubs gather to board buses that take them to hospitals across New York City. Of the thousands of nurses who have come from other states to shore up New York’s hospitals, more than 4,000 are staying in Midtown Manhattan. During the day, many rest at their hotels, amid darkened Broadway marquees, quiet streets and boarded up shops. At night, they face crowded hospital corridors, panicked patients and strained intensive care units. (Gross, 4/28)
The New York Times: Top E.R. Doctor Who Treated Coronavirus Patients Dies By Suicide
A top emergency room doctor at a Manhattan hospital that treated many coronavirus patients died by suicide on Sunday, her father and the police said. Dr. Lorna M. Breen, the medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, died in Charlottesville, Va., where she was staying with family, her father said in an interview. Tyler Hawn, a spokesman for the Charlottesville Police Department, said in an email that officers on Sunday responded to a call seeking medical assistance. (Watkins, Rothfeld, Rashbaum and Rosenthal, 4/27)
The Associated Press: Washington Mental Hospital Staff Call Virus Testing Unsafe
Workers who had been exposed to the coronavirus at Washington state’s largest psychiatric hospital were herded into a small building to be tested. Inside, few wore masks. They were given test kits by people without gloves and told to swirl a swab inside their noses. The method was designed only for people showing symptoms, but the staffers said none of them did. Many told The Associated Press that the flawed testing process this month likely produced inaccurate results and exposed them to the virus again. (Bellisle, 4/28)
The New York Times: Health Workers Under Attack During Coronavirus Pandemic
The senior nurse went on national television to make a plea on behalf of her fellow health care workers: Please stop assaulting us. Nurses working under her auspices had been viciously attacked around Mexico at least 21 times, accused of spreading the coronavirus. Many were no longer wearing their uniforms as they traveled to or from work for fear of being hurt, said the official, Fabiana Zepeda Arias, chief of nursing programs for Mexico’s Social Security Institute. (Semple, 4/27)
Stat: The Pandemic Is Taking An Outsized Toll On Filipino American Nurses
Debbie Accad, 72, a clinical nursing coordinator for the Detroit VA Medical Center, died from complications of the coronavirus on March 30. Celia Yap-Banago, 69, a “fireball” of a nurse who worked for 40 years at a hospital in Kansas City, died last week... As the coronavirus pandemic takes a devastating toll on health care workers, death notices published in recent weeks starkly show that it is hitting Filipino Americans — who make up an outsized portion of the nation’s nursing workforce — especially hard. (McFarling, 4/28)
Boston Globe: People Donated Millions To Buy Protective Gear For Hospitals. These Harvard Students Figure Out Where To Spend It
People have donated millions of dollars to help hospitals get crucial protective equipment that is being sold at a huge markup because of global demand associated with the coronavirus. But even for those that have the money, the competition to get the gear can be brutal. To help ease the burden on purchasing teams at the region’s medical centers, a hastily assembled team of Harvard Business School students has joined the fray ― pulling overnight shifts from their apartments and working contacts in China, where much of the needed equipment is made. (Rosen, 4/27)
Kaiser Health News: Widely Used Surgical Masks Are Putting Health Care Workers At Serious Risk
With medical supplies in high demand, federal authorities say health workers can wear surgical masks for protection while treating COVID-19 patients — but growing evidence suggests the practice is putting workers in jeopardy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently said lower-grade surgical masks are “an acceptable alternative” to N95 masks unless workers are performing an intubation or another procedure on a COVID patient that could unleash a high volume of virus particles. (Jewett and Luthra, 4/28)
