In images, in picturesWithin days, a field hospital was set up in Central Park to welcome its first patients as of March 31, in support of the city's hospitals.
Central Park, in the heart of Manhattan, Sunday March 29. Dozens of people are busy, under the drizzle, on the lawn of East Meadow, one of the big playgrounds in New York Park. The location was chosen because it is across from one of the Mount Sinai group hospitals in the East Harlem neighborhood.
A field hospital was being set up over the past three days in the famous park to cope with the influx of patients from Covid-19. The structure was set up by Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical humanitarian organization based in North Carolina, which dispatched around 60 people to the area.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Sunday that the state now has 59,513 cases and 965 deaths, making it by far the most affected state in the country. Tuesday, the countdown of New york times amounted to 67,174 cases and 1,224 deaths. "We’ve never seen anything like it, admitted on MSNBC Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York. It’s the kind of thing you see in wartime. "
On the lawn of East Meadow in Central Park on March 29. The evangelical humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse coordinated its intervention with New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, the United States Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Mount Sinai Hospital Group.
"We hope to be operational within 48 hours and ready to receive patients"says Elliott Tenpenny, team coordinator, who says the field hospital will have a capacity of 68 patients.
The field hospital required the installation of a dedicated electric meter.
The organization has already set up one of these temporary structures in northern Italy, in Cremona, also to receive patients with coronavirus, said Dr Tenpenny.
In addition to the logistics team dedicated to setting up the site, Samaritan’s Purse will also send doctors and nurses on site to treat patients.
Unlike many temporary structures being set up in the New York area, this site will have the necessary equipment and personnel to receive coronavirus patients.
"Hospitals are filling up all over the city and they need help. This is why we are here ", said the organization’s doctor, who has previously worked in areas of conflict and natural disasters.
"It’s often abroad, after disasters (that the organization intervened), added the Dr Tenpenny, but the United States has massive needs right now, so we put ourselves in a position to help our country. "
The field hospital, completed on time, is scheduled to open on March 31. The day before, a hospital ship of the United States Navy docked in Manhattan. It will help relieve congestion in New York hospitals, treating almost a thousand patients suffering from pathologies not related to the coronavirus.
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