With flowers, electric candles arranged in the shape of a heart, photos and short speeches, they paid tribute on Friday to their colleagues – nurses, doctors and other New York hospital workers – who have died from the coronavirus since the start of the disease. epidemic ravaging New York.
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They were called Kious Kelly, Mike Coker, Christine Hunt, Susan Sisgundo, Frank Gabrin, Daisy Dornila … About fifteen names were given in the cold by as many of their colleagues, who deposited their photos on the sidewalk, in front of one of the Mount Sinai group hospitals, west of Manhattan.
“We have come to honor, pray and remember our fallen heroes,” nurse Joanne Mee Wah Loo said to the small group of people who came to attend this modest ceremony in a freezing wind.
photo-source position-absolute"> AFP
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No one knows exactly how many caregivers have died since the outbreak began in New York, the worst-affected city in the United States with nearly 95,000 people infected and more than 5,800 deaths.
But it was in this hospital in particular that the first New York nurse known to die of the coronavirus, Kious Kelly, died at the end of March.
“He was a good guy, who worked hard, who really liked what he did,” said Lenore Leiba, a nurse who knew him. “It’s important to celebrate your life, their lives … They weren’t thinking about their own life, they were thinking about others.”
photo-source position-absolute"> AFP
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Tirzah Caraballo, medical secretary at the hospital in Montefiore, in the Bronx, came to honor especially Christine Hunt, who died last Sunday after working 35 years as a receptionist at this hospital.
“She was our mother, our friend, our sister,” she said. “She was refused protective equipment because she was a secretary (…) and that is why she is no longer there.”
photo-source position-absolute"> AFP
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At first, the masks “were reserved for nurses and doctors,” she explains, acknowledging that there is now something for everyone.
“Yes, things have improved, but we have lost so many people,” she says. “We should never have had to decide who gets a mask, who doesn’t, it’s inhuman.”
The ceremony lasted only forty minutes. It started at 7:00 p.m., the time when the applause for caregivers rang out in New York. A fire engine pulled up, several of which took the time to applaud, as did a few passers-by.
“Thank you for coming,” said Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, president of the New York State Nursing Association, present at the ceremony. “We hope we don’t have to do this again.”
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