Greater Sayville coverage is funded in part by The Shed, your scratch kitchen for brunch and dinner daily at 21 Main St. in West Sayville.
Utah health care workers who traveled across the country this month to help doctors and nurses at nearby Southside Hospital and two other Northwell Health facilities confront the COVID-19 pandemic are headed back home.
On April 14, Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Healthcare sent a team of 48 volunteers — comprised of 28 nurses, six physicians, six advanced care providers, three respiratory therapists, one pharmacist and four support staff — to bolster staff at Northwell hospitals.
“You have been absolutely terrific,” Northwell President and CEO Michael Dowling said during an informal gathering at the hotel where the Utah contingent was housed. “We were hit by a tsunami, having seen about 39,000 COVID-19 patients overall.
“When we reached out, Intermountain could not have been more helpful and moved very quickly,” Dowling continued. “The assistance you provided was extraordinary.”
The Utah volunteers helped provide life-saving care for COVID-19 patients at Southside, the Bay Shore hospital that at one point during the pandemic became almost entirely a COVID-19 care facility, along with Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park and North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset.
It was an eye-opening experience for the visiting health care volunteers.
“One walked into Southside and said you have more patients here than the whole state of Utah,” Aaron Harrison, MD, Southside’s director of gastroenterology, said in a report on Northwell’s website. “The intensivist wanted to work straight through. She said, ‘Don’t give me a day off.’
“They came into a situation where their own health was in jeopardy, and they did it with no fear and a great spirit. It was really admirable,” he added.
“Northwell Health showed us all an incredible example of resilience,” said Robert Bunnell, MD, an internal medicine specialist at Intermountain. “We gave these caregivers a break; it was obvious the traumatic and difficult experience they’d been through the previous six weeks had become overwhelming.
“You can’t really understand this epidemic until you see it firsthand and get in there at the bedside,” Bunnell added.
