DAILY NEWS: Too Many Patients, Not Enough Beds Overwhelm NYC Nurses Battling Omicron Onslaught

CRUSHED BY COVID: Nurses: We're drowning in patients

Bronx emergency room nurse Kelly Cabrera recalled the most harrowing shift of her career: Alone to cope with 15 patients, crushed by another pandemic surge, without enough time to even grab a snack.

“You are forced to make the decision of who you are going to see first,” the Jacobi Medical Center employee said Thursday as the COVID-19 omicron variant continued to pummel the city.

“And sometimes, by the time you come back to your patient, they’re not doing well anymore ... in some situations, they’ve died.”

Cabrera was joined by co-workers, nursing colleagues and elected officials outside the Bronx hospital to raise a red flag about the dual threats putting patient lives at risk — a shortage of emergency room beds, leaving some patients in the hallways for days at a time, and a severe lack of nurses.

“People always ask me, ‘What’s the difference between this wave and the first big one?’” said Karen Lam, another Jacobi emergency room nurse. “I tell them the biggest difference between this wave and the first one is the mass exodus of nurses.

“In a pandemic where we stress social distancing, patients are lying in the hallway on stretchers that are touching each other.”

Reggie Antangan of the Queens Hospital Center Telemetry Unit said his 33-bed unit once had 18 to 20 night nurses.

That number has plunged to six full-timers as longtime employees chose to flee rather than face the overwhelming caseload, he said.

“This is the worst I’ve seen in my 15 years working here as a Health+Hospitals registered nurse,” Antangan said. “H+H has not done anything to help our nurses. COVID has once again pushed the hospital to the brink of exhaustion, and these nurses are running out the door.”

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https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-jacobi-medical-center-protest-2…

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