Hospital personnel assist people at a coronavirus screening tent outside the Brooklyn Hospital Center. | AP Photo Safety net hospitals a 'disaster' as coronavirus patients begin to flood in

NEW YORK— Safety-net hospitals in central Brooklyn — hospitals of last resort that on their best days struggle for resources and staff — are getting clobbered with coronavirus patients days ahead of the expected surge.

“It’s a disaster,” said Dr. Conrad Fischer, residency program director in internal medicine at Brookdale University Medical Center. “We just had a half dozen staff just test positive. We have 17 ventilators left in the institution. Some staff can't come because they’re getting wiped out.”


The hospital has a dozen cases of Covid-19 and about 20 people under investigation, he said. Soon, Brookdale will be at capacity and doctors will need to open and expand floors, and convert office spaces into places for patients to get treatment. The hospital is down to one or two days left of personal protective equipment, Fischer said.

“It’s a pretty shocking thing,” he said before hopping off the call to intubate a patient.

New York City has about 20,000 beds that hospitals are working to make available for Covid-19 patients, though it's unclear what percentage of those beds are in Brooklyn.

“We don’t have any current data but we know there is a dire and growing need in Brooklyn hospitals for [personal protective equipment] and beds,” said Jonah Allon, spokesperson for Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo expects the surge of Covid-19 patients to come within the next 43 days, though Michael Donnelly, a data scientist at Facebook, believes New York City hospitals will reach capacity of 3,000 cases by Tuesday. Based on his modeling, hospitals could see 100 new patients an hour by March 28. Greater New York Hospital Association, which represents many private hospitals in the city, did not return a request for comment on the analysis.

The increase in caseload could not only overwhelm the bed capacity but also sicken front-line health care workers who have limited protective gear. Under mandates that all health care workers report for duty, even if those staffers were furloughed, units could fall sick to the virus should someone test positive, but show no symptoms.

“It’s always a consideration,” said Dr. Leonard Berkowitz, chief of infectious diseases division at The Brooklyn Hospital Center. “In fact, you can test negative today and test positive in a couple days. There are a lot of unanswered questions.”

To keep the workforce as healthy as possible, SUNY Downstate is having both its emergency department and inpatient units rotate staff and work in waves.

“It’s taxing both physically and emotionally to work on this unit,” said Dr. Ninfa Mehta, ultrasound fellowship director at SUNY Downstate.

The rotation also allows medical professionals to keep their protective gear on as they treat Covid-19 patients, though the health system does not yet have a shortage of personal protective gear, said Dr. Pia Daniel, clinical assistant professor of emergency preparedness.

The doctors said their biggest concern is reaching capacity and having enough ventilators for their patients. The system has about two dozen confirmed cases and patients under investigation.

“We’re expecting a surge of really sick patients and making sure that we have enough critical care beds for those,” Daniel said.