NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Mayor Bill de Blasio has agreed to send the borough’s two private hospitals more medical staff, coronavirus testing and supplies after he came under fire from the Island’s political delegation for leaving Staten Island out of the city’s coronavirus planning.
Borough President James Oddo, who recently slammed the mayor for punishing the Island for not having a public hospital, announced the mayor’s latest commitment over the weekend
But Borough Hall said it is still waiting on getting specifics on de Blasio’s commitment.
Asked about his recent commitment during a press conference with reporters Monday morning -- what exactly the city planned to send, when everything would arrive and what had taken the mayor so long to commit to sending more resources to the Island, de Blasio avoided going into details, only saying he’s prioritized Staten Island just like the rest of the boroughs from the start.
He also shot back at the Advance for asking the question.
“Every time the borough president has said there’s a certain supply needed, we’ve made sure the supply got where it was needed. Or we made sure that the state or [Federal Emergency Management Agency] or someone was getting the supplies where they were needed,” de Blasio said. “The personnel situation we’ve been working on, that’s been a hard situation for everyone because we’re still trying to get more personnel. But no, I’m sorry, I’m just not accepting the way you’re phrasing the question.”
“Staten Island has been a priority with all the other boroughs to get constant supplies [Personal protective equipment] ventilators, whatever hospitals have needed,” he continued. “And every time I've checked in on what's going on with the Staten Island hospitals, I keep getting the report back that they, like everyone else have been sent all of these basic supplies. What everyone is grappling with is, that it is not the standard any of us want to be living with, which is to go back to a kind of peacetime standard. We are in this crisis standard. No one loves living this way, but all hospitals are being supplied and served.”
CITY HAS YET TO PRODUCE DETAILS OF WHAT IT’S GIVEN ISLAND DURING OUTBREAK TO DATE
The Advance asked City Hall, the Department of Health and the Health + Hospitals network last week to provide a breakdown of the medical supplies, staff and any additional funding it has provided to Richmond University Medical Center and Staten Island University Hospital since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in the city to date, but none of them have been able to produce a breakdown.
The mayor has said the city has sent a number of supplies to the Island’s hospitals, however, the Health Department does not provide hospital-level data on supplies it has distributed.
RUMC told the Advance March 30 it received a shipment of N95 masks, gloves, face shields and surgical masks, but has been unable to say exactly how much of each it received. RUMC also said it has received no specific commitment from City Hall to date.
All of the supplies SIUH receives from the city go through Northwell Hospital’s distribution hub first, which then decides where supplies are needed the most within its hospital system. SIUH has also been unable to say which supplies it has received from the city.
Borough Hall said progress around getting resources from the city to the Island “spiked since the f-bomb tweet and numerous behind the scene conversations.”
After the Island’s city and state political delegation called on City Hall to give the borough its fair share of medical personnel, Oddo took to twitter to vent his frustration with the city in an expletive-laced tweet about “fairness and equity.”
Borough Hall said the city’s supply czar spoke to SIUH Friday to discuss its staffing needs, But SIUH could not be reached for comment at press time Monday to talk about what kind of commitment, if any, it received from the city.
Oddo also spoke to former NYPD Police Commissioner James O’Neill to talk about the equipment supply chain, his office said.
Staten Island recently did not receive a cut of the 291 military medical personnel the city deployed to its public hospitals. And the borough was also not included in the city’s plan to add 3,000 more ICU beds by May 1 at public hospitals, equip them with more than 2,500 doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners and physicians and provide free COVID-19 testing for its staff at their request.
On Friday, the city’s public Health + Hospitals network announced it had raised more than $8.2 million in donations for its healthcare workers to help them pay for meals, groceries, taxi rides, and more.
However, Health + Hospitals said those donations were only earmarked for healthcare workers within its network, therefore SIUH and RUMC healthcare workers would not receive a portion of those donations.
RUMC said last week it requested 60 registered nurses, eight respiratory technicians and four laboratory technicians from the city. SIUH has not provided the Advance with a breakdown of the additional staff it needs.
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