The coronavirus outbreak in New York City has led to the opening of a field hospital in Central Park. The hospital, which contains 68 beds, opened on Tuesday, March 31st, in the Park’s East Meadow. Volunteers from local churches and Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical humanitarian aid organization, set up the Emergency Field Hospital in partnership with Mount Sinai Health System and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Samaritan’s Purse shipped the beds to the makeshift hospital from their warehouse in North Carolina. Construction began on Sunday, March 29th, and took just two days to complete, with volunteers working non-stop through the night to put up tents and put barriers around the area.
Jeremy Boal, the Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System explained, “as part of its broader COVID-19 response, we have activated surge planning to expand our capacity to care for patients with COVID-19.” The hospital was deployed in order to create more space in local hospitals and to take advantage of a space (the East Meadow) left empty by the public as a result of social distancing guidelines.
The field hospital is made up of 14 large tents. Of the 68 beds, 10 of them are Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds equipped with ventilators. The field hospital does not admit walk-in patients, it is simply an expansion of Mount Sinai, and patients who are to occupy the beds must first go to the main hospital building. The field hospital was designed to treat the most severe cases of COVID-19, staffed by 76 doctors, nurses, lab technicians, and other medical professionals.
The path that runs along the perimeter of Central Park’s East Meadow has been sectioned off, and part of the path is now filled with supplies should there be a need to expand the field hospital. Dozens of wooden boards are at the disposal of the volunteers, who are ready at any moment to construct another tent. Additionally, there is an ambulance parked on the pathway and police stationed around the East Meadow to keep individuals from breaching the hospital’s perimeter.
The team of about 60 doctors will be guided by Dr. Elliot Tenpenny who has treated Ebola patients. New York City, being the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, will likely see the creation of more makeshift hospitals as the city attempts to contain the outbreak.
