Edison Field Hospital To Open Saturday; Gov. Murphy Tours It

EDISON, NJ — On Wednesday, Gov. Phil Murphy and U.S. Senator Cory Booker toured the pop-up field hospital in Edison, which is scheduled to start taking patients this Saturday.

This is a 500-bed field hospital built at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center on Sunfield Avenue in Edison. It is set up similar to the existing field hospital in Secaucus: There are rows of small hospital rooms, with Army cots and folding chairs inside. Privacy is at a minimum, as each small room is only separated by cloth fabric.

The Secaucus field hospital was scheduled to open this past Tuesday — except it doesn't have any patients yet. A nurse who was hired to work there told Patch she and all the other nurses who showed up to work Tuesday morning were sent home, because the hospital did not have any patients to care for.

"Operationally, the site is ready, but the admissions criteria is being worked on for which patients can be sent," said Donna Leusner, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Health. "The state will continue to adjust admissions criteria to ensure that this site and others provide relief for hospitals with capacity issues."

Both the Edison and Secaucus hospitals were not originally created to take covid patients; they are meant to take all other patients so regular hospitals can exclusively treat those with coronavirus.

However, doctors at New Jersey hospitals say COVID-19 patients are primarily the only patients they are treating these days.

"A lot of hospitals have a significant number of infected patients and not that many patients who are not infected," Dr. Nizar Kifaieh, chief medical officer at Hudson Regional Hospital in Secaucus told NJTV this week. "So if they are really banking on the fact that they are going to have a lot of non-covid patients, they are going to have empty beds."

New Jersey Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli has warned that the field hospitals could end up accepting both covid and non-covid patients. A rehab facility in Piscataway — PowerBack Rehabilitation — just announced Wednesday they are converting to a partial coronavirus (COVID-19) acute care center in order to help hospitals that are overloaded. They will handle patients who are recovering from COVID-19.

The Secaucus field hospital will handle the North Jersey caseload. The Edison site will handle Central Jersey. And a third pop-up hospital will open to serve South Jersey: That one will be located at the Atlantic City Convention Center. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started building it Tuesday, with the hope that will open sometime next week.

The Edison field hospital is the largest in the state, at double the size of the ones in Secaucus and Atlantic City, which have 250 beds each.

“The field medical station will help provide some needed relief for our hospital system," said Edison Mayor Thomas Lankey in a statement.

The Edison site will be staffed by doctors and nurses from the Department of Defense and the New Jersey National Guard.

Murphy, wearing a black State Police pullover, walked with Booker, in a dark suit, on the tour. Both wore masks.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Murphy told Booker.

There are 15 nurse stations at the hospital, as well as a pharmacy, and portable showers and bathrooms. Murphy thanked everyone who helped build the facility — including FEMA, the National Guard and New Jersey labor unions.

Booker said “this is the best of local, state, and federal officials working together seamlessly.”

“This is the way our federal dollars should be working,” the senator added.

Added Murphy: “We’ve got a really tough two or three weeks ahead of us, at a minimum. And this is gonna make a huge difference.”

Keep reading: Behind The Scenes At NJ's First Pop-Up Hospital, In Secaucus (April 2)

Pool reporting by: Brent Johnson/Statehouse Bureau, The Star-Ledger & NJ.com Pool photography by: Chris Pedota/NorthJersey.com