Report from Harlem #4

The medical personnel are working six 12 hour days per week. Yesterday was his day off. He told me that he walked around lower Manhattan and took the ferry past the Statue of Liberty. He got pictures of the Bull in front of the Stock Exchange, and walked by Ground Zero and the Trinity Church. Of course, they are all closed and fenced off, but at least he got to see them.

This morning he sent me a video of what the hospital does every time a COVID patient is taken off the ventilator and has their breathing tube removed. The view is blurry because the staff has to carry their phones inside of sealed specimen bags so that the phone doesn't become contaminated.

Even though they are dealing with untold tragedy dozens of times each day, they take joy and comfort where they can find it. It will not surprise me to find out that we have a large number of medical professionals experiencing PTSD over the coming months. Even though they are used to death and tragedy, there are hospitals that are dealing with a career's worth of death in just a few weeks. I once had a stretch of death that saw me lose 26 patients in less than six months, a