This 68-bed unit has a unique layout with specialized equipment to provide the highest level of respiratory care to patients who are suffering from the coronavirus.
On March 30, Samaritan’s Purse deployed its Emergency Field Hospital to New York City, New York, where the local medical infrastructure is severely overwhelmed.
In cooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), New York state officials, and local hospital authorities, Samaritan’s Purse will open a 68-bed field hospital, specially designed as a respiratory care unit. This response comes one week after Samaritan’s Purse opened an identical unit in Cremona, Italy—making it an unprecedented medical response for the N.C.-based organization as two Emergency Field Hospitals are run simultaneously.
Samaritan’s Purse is bringing critical surge capacity and emergency relief to families impacted by the deadly COVID-19 outbreak in New York. The international Christian relief organization deployed its Emergency Field Hospital and disaster response specialists—including doctors, nurses, lab technicians, and other support staff—to set up the field hospital in New York, where the coronavirus pandemic has overwhelmed the local medical capacity.
“People are dying from the coronavirus, hospitals are out of beds, and the medical staff are overwhelmed,” said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse. “We are deploying our Emergency Field Hospital to New York to meet this critical need. This is what Samaritan’s Purse does—we respond in the middle of crises to help people in Jesus’ Name. Please pray for our teams and for everyone around the world affected by the virus.”
As Samaritan’s Purse helps bring critical surge capacity to New York, another team of medical personnel are running an Emergency Field Hospital in Cremona, Italy. Less than 24 hours after opening this hospital, the Intensive Care Unit was full. As soon as hospital beds are open, they are immediately filled with patients suffering from the virus.
Samaritan’s Purse infectious disease experts have been working in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to ensure the team is taking necessary precautions both in the U.S. and in Italy.
The United States now has the largest outbreak of COVID-19 with nearly half of these cases in New York state. Thousands of new cases are reported each day.