Team Of Colorado Nurses Fly In To Help 3 NJ Catholic Hospitals

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — A team of 34 Colorado-based nurses are scheduled to land at Newark Airport Tuesday, and they flew in to help with the coronavirus pandemic surge of patients. The nurses will be sent to three New Jersey hospitals, and Saint Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick is among them, the hospital announced Tuesday.

The nurses are from Colorado-based Centura Health and they are scheduled to arrive Tuesday on a commercial flight provided by United Airlines.

The Colorado nurses will work at 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.

The three hospital systems are part of the CHPNJ and have all witnessed unprecedented volumes of COVID-19 patients in the past several weeks.

"Six solid weeks of ever-increasing numbers of COVID patients have taken a toll on all our hospitals," said Gary Horan, CEO of Trinitas Regional Medical Center. "This is an excellent example of mission in action."

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.

The three New Jersey hospitals submitted their requests for Centura staff, who will work for a minimum of three weeks, up to four. The Centura caregivers will be paid for this deployment.

United Airlines has a partnership with New Jersey to provide flights to transport healthcare workers into the state. This initiative is among the first.

"At Saint Peter's, we feel blessed for the help we are receiving from Centura’s selfless healthcare heroes and thankful for the opportunity to collaborate with some of our fellow Catholic hospitals in New Jersey. 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.