arrow A healthcare professional cries in front of Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, a safety-net hospital in Brooklyn, April 7, 2021. Vanessa Carvalho/Shutterstock
When COVID-19 swept through the Rockaway peninsula last spring, St. John’s Episcopal Hospital was alone to weather the storm. Those who live nearby suffer disproportionately from conditions like diabetes, obesity, and hypertension that make people more vulnerable to severe cases of COVID-19, and St. John’s has been the sole medical center serving the isolated beach community since Peninsula Hospital closed in 2012. After the pandemic hit, St. John’s quickly tripled its ICU capacity but was still pushed to its limits as the virus overwhelmed Queens.
The
New York Times recently reported through its special series “The Primal Scream” that single moms are more likely to be unemployed during the pandemic, and a Pew Research study shows that from September 2019 to September 2020 the number of Black and Hispanic unpartnered mothers who are working fell by nearly twice as much as the number of white unpartnered mothers. Almost half of Black mothers say that “the pandemic has had a major impact on their ability to pay for basic necessities like housing, utilities, and food,” according to
The
Times.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, essential workers have worked overtime to support a population in lockdown. From the cashier ringing up 30 rolls of toilet paper to the ICU nurse pumping oxygen into a patient’s lungs, these workers have mostly been women: Nearly four out of five health care industry workers are women. One in three jobs held by women is classified as essential work, according to a
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Andrew Cuomo, once America’s most beloved governor, is fighting for his political life. At least six women have accused him of sexual harassment, and the FBI is probing how his administration tallied nursing home deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the popular pandemic narrative of Cuomo as a successful responder to a crisis that has been lately led astray is not fully accurate. New York state has America’s second-highest coronavirus death toll nearly 50,000 people have died and death rate. And choices made a year ago by Cuomo and his administration fueled the carnage in the state.
Is Pandemic a Game Changer for Single Payer Bill? PUBLISHED 5:27 AM ET Mar. 09, 2021 PUBLISHED 5:27 AM EST Mar. 09, 2021
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For years, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried has introduced a bill creating a single-payer health care system in New York. Gottfried and Sen. Gustavo Rivera on Monday reintroduced the measure on Monday.
And this year, with a pandemic claiming tens of thousands of lives in New York and exposing new cracks in the health care system, is different, advocates for the measure said.
“New Yorkers elected a Democratic super-majority in the middle of a pandemic as a mandate to enact bold transformational changes, including the New York Health Act,” said Ursula Rozum, the co-director of the Campaign for NY Health. “This bill must be central to a just and equitable recovery from this pandemic and brought to a vote this year.”
Rochester Advocates Push for the New York Health Act By Lowell Rose Rochester UPDATED 10:31 PM ET Mar. 05, 2021 PUBLISHED 10:17 PM ET Mar. 05, 2021 PUBLISHED 10:17 PM EST Mar. 05, 2021
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ROCHESTER, N.Y. After years of trying to get the New York Health Act passed in the state legislature, advocates are pushing again.
“Insurance should not be an issue between life or death, between having a limb or not having a limb, we have to fix this,” Rev. Myra Brown, pastor of Spiritus Christi Church.
The New York Health Act would give access to healthcare for all state residents, and a person’s income, health or immigration status would not be an issue. Coverage would also be based on income, rather than insurance company rates.