The 1,000-Bed Comfort Was Supposed to Aid New York. It Has 3 Patients. "It's a joke"

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/nyregion/ny-coronavirus-usns-comfort.html



“It’s a joke,” said a top hospital executive, whose facilities are packed with coronavirus patients.

By Michael Schwirtz

April 2, 2020
Updated 8:34 p.m. ET

Such were the expectations for the Navy hospital ship U.S.N.S. Comfort that when it chugged into New York Harbor this week, throngs of people, momentarily forgetting the strictures of social distancing, crammed together along Manhattan’s west side to catch a glimpse.

On Thursday, though, the huge white vessel, which officials had promised would bring succor to a city on the brink, sat mostly empty, infuriating local hospital executives. The ship’s 1,000 beds are largely unused, its 1,200-member crew mostly idle.

Only three patients had been transferred to the ship, officials said, even as New York hospitals struggled to find space for the thousands infected with the coronavirus. Another Navy hospital ship, the U.S.N.S. Mercy, docked in Los Angeles, has had a total of 15 patients, officials said.

“If I’m blunt about it, it’s a joke,” said Michael Dowling, the head of Northwell Health, New York’s largest hospital system. “Everyone can say, ‘Thank you for putting up these wonderful places and opening up these cavernous halls.’ But we’re in a crisis here, we’re in a battlefield.”

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