Poverty, pollution and neglect: How the Bronx became a coronavirus 'formula for disaster'
Image by: Bryan R. Smith/AFP
Members of the medical staff listen as Montefiore Medical Center nurses call for N95 masks and other critical PPE to handle the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on April 1, 2020 in the Bronx neighborhood of New York.
ABC News
By: Evan Simon & Stephanie Ebbs
The first thing Dr. Ernest Patti noticed when he stepped into the emergency department at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx for his weekend shift was the sound. An unusually loud cacophony of beepers, alarms and the mechanical gasps of ventilators filled the air.
"The level of noise was unlike anything I've ever heard in the past," the senior attending physician told ABC News. As he began his rounds last weekend, Patti quickly realized it was going to be a ruthless shift. He had begun treating coronavirus patients in mid-March, but now the hospital seemed on the verge of being overrun.
