In Hurricane Sandy’s aftermath, medical centers scrumble to help displaced physicians and patients
Even a month after Hurricane Sandy struck New York, some medical centers are finding it hard to resume their operations, while other hospitals are giving their best to keep on going, improvising with their resources to allow displaced physicians to take care of the increased number of patients.
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Some hospitals are adding shifts of doctors and nurses on overtime, and as many offices are converted into emergency rooms, some staff visit local furniture store to buy extra beds, writes the NY Times. At some centers, visits have increased by 24 percent this November compared with last, and hospital admissions have risen 12 percent. Most of the rise in volume is from patients who had never been to those hospitals before. For Manhattan Orthopedic Care’s leading orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Armin Tehrany, who graduated from NYU medical school in 1994, it is a heartening moment that the medical staff is battling the odds to help the ones who are in need.“I am very proud of the medical center and hope that they can resume normal operations soon after this devastating hurricane. It is heartening to see that Lenox Hill Hospital (where I trained) , and Mt. Sinai (where I currently serve as assistant clinical professor), have given many of the displaced NYU physicians temporary homes to practice medicine”.
