Regardless of whether it has been a failure of hospital corporation governance vs. profits, legislature, city administrators, zoning, or foresight, the comparison is painful. Based on NY DOH’s certification of hospital ICUs, by borough, prior to the COVID-19 crisis, there’s tremendous inequality by borough to handle a surge of patients needing intensive care. Manhattan has about 1 ICU per 2,500 people; Queens has 1 for about every 11,900 people. Unfortunately, this is playing out now as Elmhurst hospital in particular has been completely overwhelmed given its centrality to Queens, and its limited number of beds.
Now is not the time for blame, finger pointing, or distraction. But once we are able to find a way through this, and make sense of the situation, there is clearly a need to address real structural problems in New York City’s pandemic and health crisis capacity planning.