An emergency field hospital is being set up in Central Park in New York City in order to keep up with the demand for hospital beds as COVID-19 cases surge. It is expected to open on Tuesday.
The field hopsital is being set up by the Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian humanitarian aid organization to help aid with the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic, according to The Hill. Members of the organization helped set up the hospital with the help of volunteers from several other churches in the area.
“People are dying from the coronavirus, hospitals are out of beds, and the medical staff are overwhelmed. We are deploying our Emergency Field Hospital to New York to help carry this burden,” said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, said in a news release.
The emergency field hospital will have a 68-bed respiratory care unit, and it’s primary purpose is to care for and treat COVID-19 patients, the organization said. It is expected to receive patients from Mount Sinai Hospital in Brooklyn and Queens.
On Monday, the 1,000-bed hospital ship USNS Comfort sailed up the Hudson River and moored on Pier 90 in midtown Manhattan, where it will treat non-COVID-19 patients to ease pressure on local hospitals as they battle with the pandemic.
The Comfort is one of two Navy hospital ships drafted in to help with the battle with the virus. The other Navy hospital ship, the Mercy, arrived in Los Angeles on Friday.
Just a few blocks down from the Comfort, FEMA is setting up a 3,000-bed field hospital at the Javits Convention Center with the Army’s assistance as a temporary medical facility, to ease the bed shortage.
There are over 153,000 confirmed cases in the United States, with more than 66,000 of those cases coming from New York. Almost 3,000 have died and more than 5,200 have recovered.
Epoch Times reporter Simon Veazey contributed to this report.
