Free Republic

Northwell Health probing whether ventilators caused coronavirus deaths New York’s largest hospital system is conducting a sweeping analysis of its use of ventilators while treating coronavirus patients during the peak of the pandemic — over concerns that an over-reliance on the machines may have cost lives. For so many sick COVID-19 patients, getting attached to a mechanical ventilator was a death sentence. More than two-thirds of the patients in Northwell Health facilities hooked to ventilators died in March and early April and the fatality rate was similar at other hospitals. At the beginning of the pandemic, health officials were worried...

Northwell Health is conducting the first clinical trials in the region to see if certain drugs help patients recover from the worst effects of the novel coronavirus. Northwell — which runs Lenox Hill, Long Island Jewish, Staten Island University and North Shore hospitals — will partner with Gilead Sciences to see if the antiviral drug remdesivir (RDV) reduces the “intensity and duration” of the illnesses that sock COVID-19 patients. RDV has helped improve the condition of patients who had MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome), SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and Ebola. A coronavirus-infected patient in the state of Washington claimed...

Michael Dowling is taking a stand against guns. Calling firearms a “disease” that “we’ve ignored for far too long,” the healthcare executive is urging fellow doctors and hospital administrators to take “aggressive” action against this “public health crisis.” Dowling is the president and CEO of Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health care provider and employer. He first published his stance in a blog post on Northwell Health’s website, and later took out a full-page ad in the New York Times’ national edition, according to HealthLeaders. “Gun violence is clearly a public health crisis that we’ve ignored for far too...