'Just chaos': New York doctors fail to cope with victims of a surge in crime

New York City hospitals are overcrowded due to a spike in gun violence in 2020. The rise in gunfights has even surpassed the rise in murders. This comes against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has also greatly increased the burden on doctors. Many doctors cannot withstand the workload and quit. The edition writes about it Daily News.

FDNY paramedic Carlos Lizcano vividly remembers that day in early 2020 when they were transporting a teenager to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the head. The guy's pulse dropped lower and lower. Liscano and his partner did everything they could to save him. They desperately did artificial respiration to make the guy's heart beat, inserted a tube into his throat to pump air into his lungs, and plugged in an electrocardiogram to monitor his pulse. “We are doing everything we can. Sometimes they come back, but not this time, ”said 49-year-old Liscano of FDNY Ambulance Station 50 in Jameika, Queens. At the hospital, doctors pronounced the death of a teenager.

The desperate attempt by ambulances to save a person's life by taking them to the hospital has become commonplace in 2020 as violent crime has skyrocketed across the city.

Police counted 1667 firearm victims in New York City as of November 15. This is twice as much as in 2019 over the same period. The rise in gunfights has even surpassed the rise in homicides, with NYPD figures showing 405 murders in the city this year as of mid-November, a 37% increase over the same period in 2019.

Fire department statistics - separate from police department data - show that 30 firearms have been reported to emergency departments as of September 1 this year, up from 304 in the same period last year - an increase of 690%. The data does not include private hospitals and ambulance companies, which also respond to shootings.

On the subject: Quarantine is not a hindrance: there is a surge in crime in New York

All this happened amid the coronavirus pandemic. “We know how to handle the high volume of calls,” said Ciara Ortiz, 29, an ambulance nurse who works at EMS Station 16 at Harlem Hospital. - But in 2020, everything took on a blurry outline. If I were to use one word to describe this year, it would be chaos. All (hospitals - Ed.) Are simply overcrowded. "

FDNY EMS union president Oren Barzilay says he has never seen anything like it in 25 years. “There were people who went home in the middle of the day, unable to bear what was happening in the past few months,” he said, adding that there was a surge in crime amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The number of victims of incidents involving the use of firearms at Brookdale University Hospital in Brooklyn more than doubled, from 93 in the first nine months of 2019 to 198 in the same period of 2020, an increase of 113%.

And at Harlem Hospital in the Bronx, their number has doubled, rising 100% from 58 to 116. The number of shootings victims at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in Queens has nearly doubled, from 63 in the first nine months of 2019 to 121 in this year, which is an increase of 92%.

“This is very exciting for the staff. Moreover, the patients may include members of your family, ”said Beverly Brown, trauma program manager at Jamaica Hospital.

Moustafa Mourad, chief surgeon, added: “There are many victims among the victims who just stood by. There are many sad stories about people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. "

In responding to such incidents, doctors and nurses have to be distracted from more routine procedures because they have to rush to the trauma department. “Shootings don't happen every hour. So sometimes they (patients - Ed.) Are admitted at the same time, ”said Dr. Shi-Wen Lee, deputy head of the emergency department in Jameik.

Also, doctors are forced to pay attention to the relatives of seriously wounded patients, or those who could not be saved. Brown said everyone reacts differently to bad news. If one person, having received the news of the death of a loved one, falls into a stupor, the other may behave aggressively or even cruelly towards the medical staff. "Because the news is traumatic for the family," Brown said.

Ronald Simon, head of trauma and surgery at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, recalled an incident this summer. A man was admitted to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the neck, abdomen and chest. One of the bullets went straight through the neck and the victim was bleeding from both sides. Simon brought in a second surgeon. “We worked on both sides of this guy's neck at the same time, trying to repair the major blood vessels damaged by the bullet,” Simon said. "It lasted about three to four hours."

The patient needed four units of blood. The human body contains one unit. “While every effort was made to control the bleeding, there was irreversible shock due to the amount of blood lost,” Simon said. - It became more and more difficult for the anesthesiologist to maintain blood pressure ... We did blood transfusions four times. Despite this, the patient's heart stopped and he died. "

Even after 30 years in medicine, Simon still struggles with these situations. “A few years ago we received a small child, maybe 8 years old or something like that. He was shot in the neck and was paralyzed, ”Simon said. “You cannot help him, and you carry this feeling home with you. You can't help but be angry about all this. Everything has to change. "