Dr. Brandon White is a doctor in the ICU at UAB West hospital in Bessemer by day, battling the coronavirus with the same N95 respirator he’s been wearing since last Thursday. He added a surgical mask on top as another layer to prevent infection until they ran low on supply.

By night he does telemedicine visits, and over the weekend he launched his “pet project,” a charity to hire local restaurants to feed healthcare workers battling the pandemic called BHMcares.

“I know what it is like to not be able to eat,” he said, adding that hospital cafeterias are often running on reduced hours right now.

Taking on and off all of the extra gear required for coronavirus makes it hard for workers to find time to go downstairs and stand in line to get food, so many are missing meals, he says.

“Having a restaurant come in and bring 30 tacos for the ICU is probably going to feed at least half that unit that wasn’t going to eat otherwise,” he said.

BHM cares taco meal delivery for hospital workers battling the coronavirus

He says when he calls the families of his patients who are battling coronavirus, they ask how they can contribute.

“People just want to help, so it seemed like a great idea to try to set up this charity to try, essentially try to funnel the community as a whole’s interest in helping to our local restaurants to try to keep them afloat,” he said.

BHMcares is one of several Alabama charity drives aimed at feeding healthcare workers treating coronavirus patients, including CareHealth, through a non-profit group called Urban Avenue, and Meals for Heroes through UAB in Birmingham.

BHMcares will serve hospitals across the city including St. Vincent’s, Brookwood Baptist, Grandview Medical Center, UAB, and Princeton Baptist.

Restaurants on board include Melt, Unos Tacos, Sol y Luna, Bamboo on 2nd, Slice, Fancy’s on 5th and Tostadas.

Each day’s donations to the charity will fund a different restaurant to deliver a meal to that day’s hospital. White hopes people donating larger sums will spread their gifts over multiple days to benefit various businesses and hospital staff workers.

White says as someone who routinely works at the ICU and even enjoys high pressure situations, coronavirus is completely different.

“It’s a lot of stress frankly,” he said.

“There is a fair amount of extra gear that we have to wear for one thing,” he said, but many needed items, like masks and gowns are not available. [Related: 3 key medical supply shortages in Alabama: ‘We have a tidal wave coming.’]

The N95 mask he’s been wearing for days was meant for a couple of uses at most, he says.

Dr. Brandon White says he's worn the same N95 mask for days

Providers are experiencing mental strain over possibly bringing the disease home to their families. It’s not clear when this virus will end, and he says there is no good treatment plan to offer beyond support right now.

When asked if doctors are feeling that perhaps they won’t be able to take what’s ahead, the answer is no.

White is part of a group chat of ICU doctors statewide, some at UAB seeing the bulk of cases now, and others elsewhere where he says, “(coronavirus) is pretty impressively ramping up.”

He sees nurses at patients’ bedsides all day, coming and going 30-40 times, removing masks, gloves, and gowns over and over again, only to go back to the same cycle and start again.

“We do this job for a reason. We want to do it, we want to help people, and we’re not going to abandon folks,” he said.

To White, something as simple as a gifted meal truly boosts morale.

“You see everybody kinda sit down and smile and say, ‘There’s a reason I’m doing this. People do care. It does matter.'”