One of the leading healthcare executives in America, Limerick-born Michael Dowling, has been appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo to head up the effort to ensure that Coronavirus patients will not overrun New York hospitals.
Michael Dowling is CEO of Northwell Health the largest private employer in New York with 75,000 employees and considered one of the leading world experts in-hospital care and crisis management
Dowling told CNN that “By the end of April there could be a possibility we see a large spike. So that's why between now and then we obviously have to be as prepared as we can possibly be. That's what we are spending all of our time doing these days."
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He also stated that the responsibility to keep hospitals from becoming overwhelmed is "also connected to what the public does. It's not just the hospitals."
"Hospitals can create extraordinary capacity. So we are aggregating all of the potential bed availability that can be made available by all of the hospitals. Then we know exactly how many beds we will be able to have, which I believe will be a lot."
New York could see a large spike in COVID-19 in April.
If not enough, Dowling said. New York would have to create facilities outside of them.
As for ventilators and equipment, Dowling said "We are doing everything possible right now using every resource that we can possibly find...to get the supplies we need. I agree that we do, in this country, have a shortage [of ventilators]...
"We are working very deliberately at the moment to make sure we have as many [ventilators] as we can get, the same with masks, the same with gloves, the same with gowns, etc."
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The New York Times reported New York’s coronavirus numbers were climbing rapidly though there have still been only 11 deaths.
“Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York provided new numbers on Wednesday that showed 2,382 people in the state had tested positive for the coronavirus, an increase of more than 800 since Tuesday. In New York City, 1,871 people had tested positive, compared with 814 on Tuesday.
“Mr. Cuomo attributed much of the jump to an increase in testing. Of the 14,597 people to be tested so far, nearly 5,000 were tested on Tuesday.
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