Thursday, April 16, 2020

Roosevelt Island Friends Of Coler And Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright Donate And Deliver Vital Supplies And Personal Protective Equipment To Coler Nursing Facility Today Including 3d Printed Visors From Cornell Tech - Adjacent Roosevelt Medical Facility Seeking Food And Equipment Support Too

As reported April 9

... the Friends Of Coler are a group of Roosevelt Island residents organizing to help the patients and staff of NYC Health & Hospitals Corp (HHC) Coler Facility during the Coronavirus pandemic. The Friends Of Coler are responding to calls for help from highly vulnerable patients and staff like this plea for N 95 masks by a Coler nurse



... Roosevelt Islanders remain very worried for friends, family, neighbors living and working at Coler Rehab and Nursing Care Center. We are continuing efforts to get detailed oversight to provide the safest medical practices available and get supplies to Coler staff and residents.

Friends of Coler is coordinating with Assembly Member Seawright’s office to donate supplies early next week to Coler. Gloves, masks, sanitizer, disinfectant wipes are all welcome at this time, especially N95 masks. Please email friendsofcoler@gmail.com to give supplies to Coler.

Friends of Coler has connected Seawright’s office with Cornell Tech’s MakerLAB and they are making 50 face shields to be finished over the weekend and donated to Coler....
This morning, Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright


and Roosevelt Island Friends Of Coler delivered Face shields, N95 respirators, surgical masks, and gloves


to Coler Nursing Facility.Director Robert Hughes and Director of Nursing Care Yves-Rose Pascal.



According to Ms Seawright:

We are happy to deliver these Face Shields made right here on the Island by Cornell University made by a 3d Printer with their students...
Coler Long Term Care and Rehabilitation Director Robert Hughes accepted the personal protective equipment from Ms Seawright


and added:
Coler is doing very well with supplies. We are very thankful for the generous thoughts and generous givings that Assembly Members Seawright has coordinated with our friends from  Cornell Tech using their expertise, their skills and technology to produce these face shields and also the Friends of Coler who are always here for us, for their generous donation as well. So thank you very much
Image Of Ms Seawright, Friends Of Coler, Coler Staff and Coler Therapy Dog Momo

Here's press release from Ms Seawright's Office:
Face shields, N95 respirators, surgical masks, and gloves are going directly to frontline doctors, nurses, and health care workers Thursday at Coler Hospital on Roosevelt Island, Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright announced.

Assembly Member Seawright, residents, and community activists are personally delivering boxes of vital supplies to the hospital located at 900 Main Street at 11 AM Thursday.

Volunteers and residents donated and collected the supplies after reports surfaced last week that frontline workers fighting COVID-19 needed additional masks.

“Roosevelt Island residents opened their hearts and responded with great generosity and without hesitation,” said Assembly Member Seawright. “We are here today to deliver these urgently needed supplies and to thank our courageous frontline medical workers for their service.”

Residents organized “Friends of Coler,” which quickly obtained 600 surgical masks, donations, and pledges for 325 N95 and KN95 respirators, 400 gloves, and three K90 respirators. They were joined in the effort by Jennilie Brewster and the staff of Open Doors NYC, an arts and justice initiative that works with long term patients at Coler.

MakerLAB led by Niti Parikh at Cornell Tech fabricated fifty 3-D printer visors with attached face shields and contributed them to the effort.

The hospital, which traditionally services patients in need of long-term care and rehabilitation, is now also taking acute care patients who have contracted the virus. New York City Health + Hospitals expanded capacity by a total of 350 beds on March 27 in response to the pandemic.

Patients were transferred from city hospitals, including Bellevue in Manhattan, Kings County in Brooklyn, Elmhurst in Queens, and Lincoln in the Bronx.

The Coler building has recently added 350 beds to be used for Covid 19 and other patients. According to the NYC Health & Hospitals Corp:
In response to the unprecedented number of patients seeking care for COVID-19, NYC Health + Hospitals opened a temporary acute-care hospital on Roosevelt Island that will expand the system’s bed capacity by 350 additional beds. The new space was stood up over a three-week span on unused parts of the campus of NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler that had been vacant for more than a decade. The separate new facility, referred to as NYC Health + Hospitals/Roosevelt Island Medical Center, has begun to accommodate patients with and without COVID-19 who are stable and do not need ICU care. Most patients will be transferred from NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, Elmhurst, Kings County, and Lincoln. The temporary hospital, which officially opened on March 27, this week accommodated its first 100 patients. The additional 240 beds are expected to open this week....

... The temporary acute-care facility on Roosevelt Island will function completely separate from the NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler long-term care/skilled nursing operation. NYC Health + Hospitals/Roosevelt Island Medical Center has its own administrative and clinical leadership team, and a team of full-time doctors, nurses and other clinicians dedicated to providing care in the new temporary facility.

The new temporary hospital began operations with approximately 100 staff members, including doctors, nurses, aides, social workers, food services staff, environmental services, clerical and security. The hospital will expand staffing to meet the needs of its 350-bed capacity....
Yesterday, social media was reporting lack of supplies at the new Roosevelt Medical Center in the Coler building.




But today, things were looking better.

UPDATE 4/18 - A Coler patient reports:
... I am on lock down and I do not feel safe in here because my roommate has been tested positive. This is one of the things I would like to see change . They keep isolating sick patients with healthy ones. How long before we are all infected?

Does not make sense to me I think this is totally reckless on their part and there is nothing they can tell me to make me think otherwise....
UPDATE 4/19: Coler was not on this list showing statistics of NY Nursing Home deaths.

UPDATE 4/21 - Coler resident Peter Yearwood declares that Coronavirus will not defeat us.

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