In the months since Superstorm cheap broadway show tickets Sandy struck the New York/New Jersey cheap broadway show tickets metropolitan area, hospital staff members have worked feverishly either to return to serving patients or to adjust cheap broadway show tickets to a lengthy surge in ED visits and admissions.
"It has to be one of the most challenging experiences I have had in my career, but it is also one of the most satisfying to see what people can do," said Cynthia Caroselli, RN, PhD, associate cheap broadway show tickets director for patient services and CNE at the VA New York Harbor Healthcare System. "Our staff stepped it up and did what was needed to take care of our patients, and I am grateful for that."
Staff safely evacuated about 100 patients at the Manhattan VA campus to other VA facilities before the late October storm. The basement and subbasement flooded, causing catastrophic failure of all the major utility systems and damage to clinic cheap broadway show tickets space and an MRI unit.
The VA has stationed cheap broadway show tickets physicians, pharmacists, social workers and other staff in the lobby to assist patients and triage needs, and it is providing some care in mobile vans. It also has opened a unit at its Queens extended care facility, as well as additional dialysis, inpatient and psychiatric units in Brooklyn.
"There has been a tremendous effort to transform every bit of usable space at the Brooklyn campus," Caroselli said. Manhattan VA nurses have dispersed to wherever they were needed within cheap broadway show tickets the VA system.
Crews are repairing 150,000 square feet of flood-damaged space at the Manhattan facility. "We are taking it a day at a time, and we are making wonderful progress," Caroselli said. "There is an incredible amount cheap broadway show tickets of work going on."
"The teamwork this staff did during and after the storm is nothing less than miraculous," said Terry Mancher, RN, who serves as CNO and deputy executive director at Coney Island. "There is nothing cheap broadway show tickets I could be more proud of than the staff working together."
Before the storm, Coney Island had transferred ventilated patients, and nurses prepared information packets with medications for the rest of the patients. HHC president Alan D. Aviles rode out the storm at Coney Island, a boost for staff morale, Mancher said. As Sandy came ashore, water surged into the hospital�s ED. The facility lost power when water rose so high nearly 15 feet that it threatened backup generators. Nurses stayed one-on-one with each critical care patient.
Coney Island first reopened outpatient, urgent care, pharmacy and behavioral health services. cheap broadway show tickets It hoped to begin admitting cheap broadway show tickets inpatients this month. In addition, two mobile medical vans are serving the community. Construction crews tore out wet drywall and removed floor tiles and ceiling panels, which could hold in moisture.
Coney Island redeployed its nurses to other hospitals, primarily Kings County and Woodhull hospitals. Both Brooklyn HHC facilities had received some Coney Island patients. "It took a lot of coordination to know where everyone went," Mancher said.
HHC�s Bellevue Hospital Center evacuated 715 patients after 17 million gallons of seawater flooded the 180,000-square-foot basement cheap broadway show tickets and damaged more than 200 pieces of electrical, communication, cheap broadway show tickets heating and air conditioning equipment, along with emergency fuel pump equipment needed to keep the facility running.
The New York City Council has approved $300 million in repairs to HHC hospitals, cheap broadway show tickets according to HHC spokesman Ian Michaels, but total repair costs are anticipated at more than that. HHC also will assess how to make its facilities less vulnerable to future cheap broadway show tickets storms.
Facility hardening also is a priority at NYU Langone Medical Center cheap broadway show tickets in Manhattan, cheap broadway show tickets which suffered more than $1 billion in damages, including the loss of four MRI units, a gamma knife and a linear accelerator, and safely evacuated 322 patients.
Some NYU nurses went to Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan to care for NYU�s transferred cardiac surgery patients. But with NYU reopening, those nurses have left, said Mary Walsh, RN, MSN, NEA-BC, vice president of patient care services and CNO at Beth Israel.
Beth Israel Medical Center has cared for more than 400 ED patients daily since the storm. The hospital has brought in per diem and travel nurses to supplement its staff, which has worked many overtime hours. It converted a chemical dependency rehabilitation unit to a medical floor to handle the influx and retrained nurses.
Beth Israel Brooklyn also has received an influx of patients and has had difficulty discharging patients requiring long-term care, since seven area nursing homes have closed, two with ventilator units, said Marguerite Corda, RN, MSN, vice president of patient care services at Beth Israel Brooklyn. The hospital has brought in travel nurses to handle the additional volume and ordered more food, linen and other supplies.
The Institute for Nursing, founded in 1988 as the private charitable affiliate cheap broadway show tickets of the New Jersey State Nurses Association, is offering its members up to $2,000 of emergency assistance as part of its Disaster Relief program for those affected by Superstorm Sandy.
The damages or losses creating cheap broadway show tickets the need must have occurred between Oct. 29 and Oct. 31 in counties declared by the state as a disaster cheap broadway show tickets area, according to NJSNA. cheap broadway show tickets The grants are available to member nurses of NJSNA and American Nurses Association-New York from donations.
According to the website, grants will be given only to nurses with a valid need based on documentation. Grants are awarded based on availability of funds, meeting the stated criteria with documentation and other compelling needs. Priority will be given to applicants who have suffered cheap broadway show tickets injuries or major property loss or damage.
cheap broadway show tickets The areas where funds may be used include � emergency housing, including hotels/motels, renting replacement housing or apartments and relocation costs related to moving into emergency housing; transportation, including public transportation tokens/tickets, car rental or a down payment to help replace a car damaged cheap broadway show tickets in the disaster; purchase of generators to enable a nurse to move back into his or her home; expenses incidental to relocation, including cheap broadway show tickets boarding pets; other emergency needs not listed but which pose a significant hardship for the nurse, which may include temporary child care and elder care.
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