Uptown Manhattan Clinics To Get City Help In Coronavirus Fight

UPTOWN, MANHATTAN — Clinic doctors in Northern Manhattan neighborhoods hit particularly hard by the coronavirus pandemic will soon get help from the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this week.

Washington Heights, Inwood, Morningside Heights and Hamilton Heights were among seven Manhattan neighborhoods whose community-based healthcare providers will be getting protective equipment, tele-medicine training and other support in the coming weeks, the mayor said Monday.

"Community clinics are the place people turn for healthcare that don’t have other options — the community clinics are the place they can depend on," de Blasio said Monday. "They’ve had to do a lot during this crisis but with many, many challenges."

Part of the help will be deliveries of 120,000 surgical masks and 115,000 gloves each week to the healthcare providers, which in all represent 26 of the hardest-hit neighborhoods citywide.

The protective equipment will ease the strain on facilities that have been short on resources since the crisis began, de Blasio said.

"Some of them literally couldn't do their work or keep their clinics open for the lack of it," the mayor said at his press conference.

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The support will also include weekly tele-medicine webinars to train doctors on how better to use virtual appointments during the pandemic and help with filling out applications for federal aid. The city will start by training 150 providers with the tele-health webinars, de Blasio said.

The mayor added that clinics that are shorthanded will also get help from members of New York City's medical reserve corp.

New York City has enlisted the help of 1,000 retired doctors, the Army Reserve medical team and early graduates from its medical schools into the fight against the coronavirus.

The Mayor's Office did not immediately have details available about which specific healthcare clinics in Washington Heights and Inwood would be getting the city help.

The news about the healthcare support comes as New York City's death toll from the coronavirus rises above 20,000. COVID-19 claimed the lives of 14,928 New Yorkers who received tests and another 5,128 likely died from the virus, for a total of 20,056, city data as of Tuesday showed.

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