How the health care system is coping with the coronavirus

Yahoo Finance Video
Updated

Director of Quality for Cancer Services at Mount Sinai Health System Dr. Cardinale Smith joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman to discuss the issues the health care system is facing in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: For more on the actual front lines of this, I want to bring in someone with firsthand experience when it comes to treating those affected here. Dr. Cardinale Smith joins us now via Google Hangout. She's the Director of Quality for Cancer Services at Mount Sinai Hospital in Mount Sinai Health Care System in New York City.

And Cardinale Smith, Dr. Smith, I just want to ask you first about what you're seeing in regards to all this, as we hear more from the President about maybe potentially not waiting months but rather weeks to get back up here in terms of opening all these businesses. How would that impact the caseload that you're seeing in hospitals and the one you're working in right now on the front lines? Do you think we're anywhere near potentially getting back to normal here?

CARDINALE SMITH: Yeah. I mean, I think just like before the shut-- the shelter in place or the stay at home orders began, we were counseling our cancer patients to really stay at home and shelter in place and only leave if absolutely necessary. I think we would still follow that same guidance, even if all of the sudden things were to open up within the next two weeks, because we know that the risk is still very high.

ZACK GUZMAN: And I mean as you're talking about-- I know your background's mostly in cancer or when you're dealing with patients on that side. How is the rest of everything else-- every other aspect of the hospital have been shifted to kind of deal with this? Because we talk about the stresses and adding capacity across the country, how has it impacted maybe treating other patients that might not even have anything to do with coronavirus or COVID-19 here and how it's kind of cascading into other areas of treatment?

CARDINALE SMITH: Yeah. I mean, I would say, thankfully, we're still able to provide the same quality care that we've been able to provide to patients previously. You know, we may be shifting them around in the hospital so that we don't have patient without COVID near patients who do have COVID. But for the most part, we've, thankfully, been able to care for them the same. I think probably the biggest impact has been with our visitor management policies in terms of limiting visitors into the hospital.

ZACK GUZMAN: And we've heard that anecdotally, too, even-- even wives, women giving birth, and husbands not necessarily being able to be in the room to play a normal role in that.

But when you look at the actual ventilator issue-- we've heard Governor Cuomo addressing that quite a bit, asking for 30,000 ventilators. We heard from VP Mike Pence talking about FEMA sending 2,000 to the state. Still a massive shortage when we think about the gap there. How is that necessarily going to impact what should be the strategy around flattening the curve and maybe telling people to stay home for longer rather than the shorter period of time we're hearing out of the White House.

CARDINALE SMITH: Yeah. I mean, I would say it's a big worry. I've gone on all of the websites myself and looked at all of the projections of how long we need to stay in the house in order to really flatten the curve. I mean, I think it's a concern that we all have. You know, I certainly think that, for all of our parts, staying at home as much as we can to really flatten the curve and to prevent this from spreading even more so that we can offset that burden to our hospital systems would be-- will be really critical.

BRIAN CHEUNG: Hey, Brian Cheung here. So I wanted to ask, just in terms of the amount of staff that you have, no hospital or facility could have been prepared for the coronavirus and just the amount of stress that it puts on in terms of personnel. I'm wondering has Mount Sinai, for example, tried to hire new people in the interim, maybe not necessarily in a nurse or direct capacity, but just in other parts of the facility or in the hospital a large?

CARDINALE SMITH: Yeah. I mean, I would say to my knowledge we have not. I think from a physician standpoint, we have physicians who have volunteered to come out of retirement to come help in the way that they can in terms of doing telehealth visits and things like that.

ZACK GUZMAN: In regards to treating other patients, though, and we talked about how this is going to be a lot more people, just the caseload, that we're hearing from Governor Cuomo in New York, does-- kind of right now-- it is, potentially, the new epicenter. We heard the WHO talking about how the US could become the new epicenter for this, too, as it moves across the globe. But here in New York, I mean, we're hearing so many instances of just scrambling right now to figure out how the hospital bed situation is going to be able to meet what could become the worst in about two weeks time. So in your estimation, are we tracking to meet the demand that will be there for hospital beds? And what are you seeing play out there on the front lines?

CARDINALE SMITH: Yeah. I mean, I can only speak really to what I know in terms of my oncology and cancer population. I would say that, as of right now, we're able to meet those needs. We're still able to admit those patients who need to be admitted either for acute chronic conditions or for elective chemotherapy. And right now, we have processes and plans in place so that we can continue to do that. I think we are absolutely worried. And we're really taking this day by day to see what happens as the situation evolves.

- If you could say one thing to the Trump administration, just in terms of the number one thing that you as a doctor, that you've heard from your patients, that you've heard from your co-workers, that you need help with in addressing, immediately, within the next few hours, within the next day or two, what would that be?

CARDINALE SMITH: I MEAN I would say what I am hearing from people across the country, and reading on Facebook and social media sites, is the incredible need for PPE. And so I would say that if we needed anything within the next couple of hours, that I think health care workers everywhere need PPE and could benefit from having that protection.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah. I mean, even when we think about the shortage of masks, too, on that front and the way that people have been going out to buy N95 masks and what that means for hospital workers dealing with cases here, obviously, that's not a good situation when you have them getting sick, further stressing the amount of staff that we have available in hospitals. But for now, Dr. Smith, really want to appreciate-- I really want to say I appreciate you taking your time to chat with us on this. Thank you so much.