NEW YORK — The coronavirus careening through New York City has brought one of the world’s premier medical capitals to its knees.
The city’s cash-strapped public hospitals were predictably overwhelmed by the breadth of the virus: Despite relocating certain patients and rearranging wards to open up space for the influx, the system was consumed by the crisis. So too was New York City’s network of private hospitals, most of which operate on much more comfortable margins and have boards that count New York’s civic elite as members.
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In a city of extremes, the coronavirus has been an equalizer: Wealthy and poor alike are grappling with its grip on their medical resources.
“Everybody’s in the same boat — private hospitals, public hospitals, every hospital,” said Kenneth Raske, president of Greater New York Hospital Association. “They’re all responding to this crisis.”
The pandemic has exposed how ill-prepared hospitals are for a crisis of this magnitude, despite repeated pleas by medical professionals to bolster response plans. Some of that falls on the federal government, which under Democratic and Republican leadership alike has stripped funding for programs created in the wake of 9/11 to prepare health systems for a catastrophe.
“No one ever got enough money to actually get prepared for a major disaster like this,” said Irwin Redlener, a medical doctor and the director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, as well as an adviser to Mayor Bill de Blasio on public health matters.
Source: ‘Everybody’s in the same boat’: Coronavirus drives New York’s hospitals to breaking point
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