You are reading

De Blasio and Wife Launch ‘Combat Trauma’ Initiative for Frontline Healthcare Workers

Mayor Bill de Blasio and First Lady visit NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue. Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office

April 29, 2020 By Allie Griffin

The City is bringing in military experts to train New York City healthcare workers on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic to cope with “combat trauma,” Mayor Bill de Blasio and First Lady Chirlane McCray announced today.

Military trauma specialists will train more than 1,000 health personnel at the city’s public and private hospitals in combat stress management. The trained staff will then train even more personnel to provide mental health support for healthcare workers who witness deaths and devastation daily as the virus has overtaken New York City hospitals.

McCray will lead the effort in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense. The training will be a combination of webinars and in-person facility-based teachings.

“For weeks now all our frontline healthcare workers — who I think of as our soldiers of grace and mercy — have been pushed to the limit,” McCray said. “Inside our hospitals, we’ve had battlefield conditions with triage and fear in the hallways.”

She said the healthcare workers who provide urgent care struggle with their own mental health. She called the emotional state of workers “a crisis within a crisis.”

“When the emergency field hospitals and morgues close, after the tv crews leave and the clapping stops, our soldiers, our healers go home and we have to wonder how do these healers manage their stress after so much death and suffering,” she said.

McCray said the program is already underway and training is expected to be available by the end of the month.

The initiative follows two suicides in the New York healthcare system.

A young Bronx EMT, John Mondello, killed himself last week after less than three months on the job. And on Sunday, the medical director of the emergency department at a Manhattan hospital, Dr. Lorna Breen, took her own life.

McCray held a moment of silence for both Mondello and Breen.

email the author: [email protected]

3 Comments

Click for Comments 
Jon

As a leader and mayor Bill de Blaseo is an embarrassment. He needs to disappear from being in charge of anything.

Reply
Disgusted Citizen

Is there any possibility that someone competent can lead this effort that actually has a successful track record? We owe that to our first responders.

Reply
Save the Robots

Bill de Blasio has no business involving his completely unqualified wife in anything related to government (as her failure-ridden record for ThriveNYC clearly shows).

He will be unemployed soon (but not soon enough, IMV). All he’s doing is trying to position her to run for Brooklyn Borough President. Heaven help us.

Reply

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Op-ed | Queens-based faith leaders: Climate crisis is the moral crisis of our time

Mar. 21, 2024 By Imam Muhammed Shahidullah and Rev. Jeffrey Courter

As we approach another sure-to-be sweltering and storm-drenched summer due to the continued warming of the planet, it is time to take decisive, bold action for climate justice here in NYC. As residents of Queens, we know all too well the havoc of climate destruction. Not even two years ago, eleven people in our borough were killed by flooding from Hurricane Ida. And, we’re still rebuilding from Hurricane Sandy, over a decade later. The worsening climate and ecological crisis will continue to affect everyone, but mostly the most vulnerable in our communities.