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Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel described the chaos brought to New York City hospitals by the coronavirus pandemic as “disturbing,” emphasizing the disproportionately high infection rate among health care workers.
“I think the hospitals are overwhelmed by not just Covid-19 patients, but by a lot of nervous worried patients that are flocking to emergency rooms and [they] make triage very difficult … [it] makes it hard to get to the right patients and to [get] the right people to be taking care of them,” Siegel told “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Siegel added that “coronavirus patients need to be treated with great respect, but they need to be in the right facilities … which are negative air pressure places.”
NYC NURSE SOUNDS ALARM AS CORONAVIRUS CASES WORSEN: WE’RE GOING INTO BATTLE ‘WITHOUT THE WEAPONS’
As the rate of infected doctors and nurses continues to surge, Siegel stressed the importance of ensuring that medical personnel have the protective equipment necessary to treat infected patients without putting their lives at risk.
“I trained during the height of the HIV epidemic in the 1980s and I spent … many nights drawing blood from IV drug abusers, putting my own health and safety on the line. I joined many other very brave people, doctors and nurses and emergency workers doing that, but I did it on my own recognizance,” Siegel said.
“That was my choice. Nobody was compelling me to do it. I do not believe that nurses, physicians, our brothers and sisters on the front lines and EMTs should be doing this without proper equipment,” he added.
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Siegel’s comments come a day after a New York City hospital’s assistant nursing manager, 48-year-old Kious Kelly, died two weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus.
“This should be right away, addressed immediately,” Siegel stressed. “They should not be losing their lives or their health over this.”
