Staff reports
Utica police Thursday identified the victim of a Tuesday evening car crash.
Utica police and firefighters were dispatched around 7:30 p.m. for a vehicle that had driven into a wooden area and caught fire near the intersection of Albany Street and South Park Drive, police said.
It was quickly learned the driver, Joseph Suppa, 65, of Utica, was trapped inside.
A Utica patrolman manned the fire hose to put out the fire as firefighters worked to extricate Suppa, police said.
After more firefighters arrived, he was freed and brought to the St. Elizabeth Campus of the Mohawk Valley Health System. On Wednesday, police announced Suppa had died from his injuries.
She cries at least once every shift from sheer emotional exhaustion, said a nurse at the St. Luke’s Campus of the Mohawk Valley Health System.
“You just look at your patients and they’re not getting better,” said the nurse who has been caring for patients with COVID-19 at the New Hartford hospital.
One day five patients died, she said. “That’s disturbing on every level,” said the nurse, whose name is being withheld because she fears retaliation for talking to the media without permission.
This nurse and seven others five from the health system’s St. Elizabeth Campus in Utica and three from the St. Luke’s Campus told remarkably similar stories of trying to care for too many patients with too little help as the number of COVID-19 patients surged in January.
Nurses on medical-surgical units are typically responsible for five or six patients, but these days they may oversee care for seven, eight or even nine patients, Conley said. In the ICU, nurses normally care for two patients, but now often have to care for three, she said.
“It has been very challenging,” she said.
Conley acknowledged that the Mohawk Valley Health System has been trying to recruit more patient care staff, including nurses, but said administrators need to do more to recruit and to retain staff. Some nurses have left because they’ve gotten better offers elsewhere, she noted.
“Be competitive in the marketplace,” Conley advised administrators. “Brainstorm some idea. There’s things that could be done. They’ve got to step up and make it happen.”