Two NYC Hospitals Ask Doctors to Stay Close in Case of Surge

(Bloomberg) -- Two major New York City hospital systems have asked physicians and other staff to stay close to home in case they’re needed because of a surge of patients infected with the new coronavirus.

Northwell Health and Mount Sinai Health System, two of the metropolitan area’s largest hospital groups, said doctors have been told not to take personal trips in case of a surge in patients with the respiratory disease.

“We are discouraging travel in general,” Terry Lynam, a spokesman for Northwell Health, said in an email. “All hands on deck. Our clinicians recognize this is a crisis situation and that now is not the time to go away.” Northwell is the region’s largest health system, with 23 hospitals and more than 5,500 beds in the city, Long Island and Westchester County.

Lucia Lee, a spokeswoman for Mount Sinai, confirmed that doctors at the health system had been given similar instructions. Mount Sinai has more than 3,800 beds across eight hospitals, according to its website.

New York Mayor Bill De Blasio declared a state of emergency on Thursday and said there had been a “striking and troubling” increase in positive coronavirus tests. New York now has 95 confirmed cases, up 42 from Wednesday. While that number is small, testing capacity is just beginning to increase and the expectation is that cases will rise further.

Governor Andrew Cuomo also said Thursday that state health officials are asking doctors and nurses who have retired or left hospital jobs whether they would be available to return to those institutions if they’re needed.

The large majority of people who get Covid-19, as the infection caused by the coronavirus is known, experience mild symptoms and recover. While it’s about 10 times deadlier than the flu, according to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, those at highest risk are older people or those with underlying health conditions.

Mount Sinai earlier this week sent a message to physicians asking them to not to travel, said Eric Neibart, an infectious-disease physician with the health system. Another Mount Sinai doctor said that physicians had been asked not to take trips outside the region without permission of a supervisor. That doctor, a surgeon, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Medical providers are preparing for the risk that a sudden surge in patients, including seriously ill people, could overwhelm space available in hospital beds, intensive-care units and the need for supportive care like ventilators. That pattern has played out in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus outbreak began, and more recently in Italy.

For U.S. hospitals, “this is what has everyone petrified -- the Italy story. It’s overwhelmed medical facilities. It would incapacitate facilities,” said
Neibart.

--With assistance from Henry Goldman, Michelle Fay Cortez and Caroline Salas Gage.

To contact the reporters on this story: John Tozzi in New York at jtozzi2@bloomberg.net;Vincent Del Giudice in Denver at vdelgiudice@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Drew Armstrong at darmstrong17@bloomberg.net, Mark Schoifet

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