An Israeli doctor living and working in New York said that the health system in the city is slowly collapsing, Ynet reported. Dr. Amos Dodi, an ICU and pulmonary disease expert affiliated with the Montefiore Medical Center, told Ynet that the hospitals are working with reduced staff, which prevents additional wards from opening and negatively affects patient care. “We observe an increased demand on the health system, which we do not expect to change and are simply obliged to compromise the quality of care,” he said. Dr. Dodi added that internal medicine wards are overflowing and patients are lying on beds in the hallways. “We are struggling with maintaining sterile areas at the moment,” he said. “People may be infected with COVID in our emergency rooms and we’ve already had to intubate some in the hallway. This is a sign of the health system collapsing.” “These patients, some still in moderate condition, will deteriorate and because our ICU’s are full, we will have nowhere to treat them. This will certainly cause unnecessary deaths.” Dr. Dodi also addressed the rise in hospitalizations in children 18 and younger. “The increase in pediatric hospitalizations is about three times larger than the increase in other age groups.  Some 50% of the kids do not have underlying conditions so this is an increase in serious morbidity compared to previous waves.” “We know that unvaccinated people are three times more likely to become ill, and five times more likely to need hospital care,” he said. “The problem is that only 25% of children aged 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated and in the 5 to 11 age group the percentage is even lower. We see that 50% of our pediatric cases are in children under the age of four.” Dodi said that life in New York is continuing but there are fewer people out on the streets. “New York would not bounce back from another closure after the damage caused to it over the past two years,” he said. “Children are going to school and people who must, go to work. There is less traffic on the streets and less people out and there are also very long lines at testing sites.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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