Photos: Colorado Nurses Arrive To Help NJ Hospitals In Need

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — When we reported earlier this week that a team of 34 nurses were flying in from Colorado to help on the coronavirus front lines at New Jersey hospitals, the positive response was overwhelming: Thousands of readers "liked" the article on Facebook, and it was re-shared dozens of times.

And now today, here are some photos of those nurses!

The first photo shows the nurses landing at Newark Liberty Airport Tuesday afternoon. They were flown here on United, which has a partnership with the state of New Jersey to provide flights to transport healthcare workers into the state to help with coronavirus/COVID-19 response. The Colorado nurses were among their first flights.

St. Peter's University Hospital is one of the three Catholic hospitals in the state where they will work.

The nurses are from Colorado-based Centura Health and they will work at three Catholic Healthcare Partnership of New Jersey (CHPNJ) hospitals, including Saint Peter's, St. Joseph's Health in Paterson and Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth.

Those three hospitals have all witnessed unprecedented volumes of COVID-19 patients in the past several weeks, say their CEOs.

"Six solid weeks of ever-increasing numbers of COVID patients have taken a toll on all our hospitals," said Gary Horan, Trinitas CEO.

Initial Patch report: Team Of Colorado Nurses Fly In To Help 3 NJ Catholic Hospitals (April 21)

They will be deployed here for a minimum of three weeks, up to four. The Centura caregivers will be paid for their work in New Jersey.

Colorado is currently experiencing low volumes in hospitals: They haven't had the COVID-19 case surge that New Jersey has experienced, and elective surgeries and procedures have all been postponed. So Centura Health asked members across their workforce if they would like to fly to New Jersey hospitals in need.

The team is a combination of registered nurses with medical, surgical and emergency department experience and one administrator.

"At Saint Peter's, we feel blessed for the help we are receiving from Centura's selfless healthcare heroes and thankful for the opportunity. Our mission truly breathes life into an oft-repeated belief: 'We're all in this together,'" said Leslie Hirsch, president and CEO at Saint Peter's Healthcare System.