A man accused of rape was arrested and charged on Monday evening after a nurse working on the coronavirus front line was followed into an apartment building and attacked on Friday night.
Jason Roberts, 35, from the Bronx, was charged with attempted rape, robbery and burglary after he allegedly punched the woman, 32, and tried to tear off her pants in a Manhattan apartment on 149th street.
She fought him off and he is said to have fled with her cellphone before being found by police three days later, according to NYPD and police sources.
The nurse was bruised but refused medical attention and it is not known if she stayed in New York after the attack.
More than 12,000 people have died from Covid-19 in New York City, with another 4,300 dying in other parts of the Empire State, which is a far larger number than any other state in the country.
Some 90,000 healthcare workers signed up to volunteer in the Empire State, with at least 21,000 coming from outside of New York.
It comes after a nurse, speaking anonymously through her friend, revealed some nurses who have been brought to New York are sitting in hotels never being called.
'Yet they're still understaffed and there are hundreds of people, hundreds of nurses in the hotels waiting to be called on to a shift,' her friend, Sara, said.
'So there is manpower enough if the goal were to actually save people, but resources are not being utilized properly or to full capacity in a way that maximizes the patient benefit or improves the outcomes.'
According to multiple reports, more than 90 per cent of them were still sitting on the sidelines waiting to be called up.
Articles published last month by The Washington Post and The New York Times quoted frustrated doctors and nurses as saying that they have been waiting in vain for someone to reach out to them and give them an assignment, even though they were willing and able to help with the pandemic response.
Government officials explained that a state database created to recruit volunteers compiles and vets candidates, but individual hospitals are then responsible for calling them up, training them and giving them specific assignments.
Hospitals often prioritize certain medical specialties over others, such as ICU doctors, respiratory therapists and nurse practitioners.
The city and state's slow-moving bureaucracies slow down the process even further, along with a tangled web of regulations and a general sense of confusion.
The governor's office said there is a staff of lawyers vetting the volunteers' licenses and looking into their disciplinary histories before allowing them to set foot inside a hospital
Meanwhile a disturbing video emerged of workers burying coffins containing the bodies of COVID-19 victims in a mass grave on Hart Island.
The Post interviewed Dr George Weinhouse, a 67-year-old retired anesthesiologist, who said that he has approached multiple hospitals over the past two weeks offering to help in any capacity, but to no avail.
'I don’t know what’s going on here,' Weinhouse said. 'I’m waiting and I want to help, and I mean, it’s really frustrating.'
Bevin Strickland, a former pediatric ICU nurse form North Carolina, offered a similar account to The Times, describing her efforts to sign up as an unpaid volunteer online and via email, but getting no response from anyone.
She ultimately got assigned to Mount Sinai Queens, but only after contacting the hospital directly and being instructed to go through a private recruiting agency handling temporary hires.
Strickland was given a salary of $3,800 a week for three 12-hour shifts, even though she said her plan was to do the work for free.
'I don’t feel like I should be walking out of this scenario with any money,' she told The Times. 'It feels wrong.'
During her first two days on the job, she said two other nurses from out-of-state quit after becoming overwhelmed by the enormity of the task.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has waived some regulatory restrictions to expedite the process of putting volunteers to work where they are needed most, including allowing medics with out-of-state licenses to practice medicine in New York without a local license.
Health care workers who have hit the ground already, many brought in by staffing agencies, discovered a hospital system in danger of being overwhelmed.
'I have never seen so many human beings in an ER at one time in my entire life,' said Liz Schaffer, a nurse from St. Paul, Minnesota, who had her first shift Tuesday at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. 'Shoulder to shoulder. It is a sight I never thought I would see. Patients are dying every day. Every single day.'
This article has been adapted from its original source.
