In early April, NYU Winthrop Hospital, a mid-sized suburban medical center on Long Island, was highlighted by New York’s Governor Cuomo as one of the state’s eight “hot spots” stricken with COVID-19, as Long Island became inundated with cases in a state ablaze with the coronavirus. NYU Winthrop was the first hospital on Long Island to be report a COVID-19 case.
On Tuesday, April 21, the hospital will successfully discharge its 750th COVID-19 patient—a significant accomplishment for a hospital that operated with only 511 beds when the first Coronavirus patient came through its Emergency Room doors in early March. NYU Winthrop says that its success can give hope to other hospitals fighting COVID-19 throughout America. In just 6 weeks, NYU Winthrop went from ground zero fighting this pandemic, to sending home more COVID-19 patients with regained health than the hospital originally had beds.
The hospital staff, many of whom worked through traumas like 9/11, work overtime and tirelessly—and often out of their comfort zones. Nurses, such as those usually caring for elective hernia patients, now lend their hands in COVID-19 units. Some staff contracted COVID-19 themselves, like the hospital’s chairman of heart and lung surgery, Dr. Scott Schubach; when his symptoms became too much to handle, he entered the hospital through NYU Winthrop’s ER doors just like every other coronavirus patient.
