On the evening of Monday, May 4, Northwell Health held a walk and candlelight vigil at its New Hyde Park campus to remember coronavirus patients who have died of the virus and honor the hospital workers putting their lives on the line throughout the pandemic.
The walk covered the entire campus, which includes Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Cohen Children’s Medical Center and Zucker Hillside Hospital. A few hundred staff members attended the vigil, said Michael Goldberg, executive director of LIJ Medical Center.
After the candlelight walk, during which staff members were asked to keep thoughts of those who lost their lives in mind, the attendees gathered to listen to Goldberg share a few words.
The idea for the vigil came from a few of the hospital’s management associates in the hospital operations department, said Goldberg.
“They’ve been with us through the entire COVID epidemic, seeing how the epidemic has been impacting our team members,” he said. “They thought it would be a really nice thing to do to give a tribute to the people who lost their lives, but also to be a release for our team members, and a way of supporting them.”
“We’re at a point right now where we’re past the peak,” he added. “LIJ had at one time over 900 patients … and we’re down to about half of that. So everybody has a little bit of a lull, and they’re able to take a breath.”
The vigil also marked Patient Experience Week, which is recognized by health systems across the country and took place the week of Monday, April 27. The event was originally scheduled for that week, Goldberg explained, but was postponed due to weather.
In addition to the candlelight vigil, LIJ has been celebrating coronavirus survivors as they leave the hospital. The hospital has discharged over 1,600 COVID-19 patients.
“Anytime there’s a survivor that’s going to leave the hospital that’s given [the hospital] permission to celebrate them … we announce it overhead, and then whoever is around working that shift gathers in the lobby and claps them out, which has been a real morale-booster,” Goldberg said. “To me, they’re clapping for the patient [and also] for each other, and the ability that they have had to drive this success.”
Whenever a coronavirus patient has recovered enough to be taken off a ventilator, the hospital plays the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” over the PA system, Goldberg added.
“It’s been a roller coaster,” said Goldberg. “There’s been a tremendous amount of pride that our team has felt from the successes. They’ve rallied together as a team in a way that I’m really proud of. They’ve supported one another. They’ve become family members to patients when their family members could not visit them. The way that they’ve supported each other has really built up morale.”
“While we had this event to honor those who lost their lives, there have been many more people who survived than whose lives have been lost, and we were celebrating that just as much,” he said.
