Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Sep 03, 2025

“I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This”: Doctors Without Enough Ventilators Are Being Told Whom To Save During The Coronavirus Pandemic

“I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This”: Doctors Without Enough Ventilators Are Being Told Whom To Save During The Coronavirus Pandemic

“I watched like three people die on Saturday - nothing we can do. Zero," one New York City doctor told BuzzFeed News.

At the top of the list for ventilators: patients with just one failing organ. And then there are the others. Doctors with patients who are unresponsive to standard measures, have severe burns, have irreversible low blood pressure, or any other condition that would result in immediate mortality are instructed not to put them on ventilators during the coronavirus pandemic.

As the coronavirus wreaks havoc across the nation, doctors who shoulder much of the crisis are left with devastating life or death decisions.

BuzzFeed News reviewed documents from a New York City public hospital in line with previous reporting from the New York Times that lay out “policy enhancements” for doctors at hospitals across the nation on how to prioritize helping patients who are sick because of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, as medical supplies run low. At least one New York City public hospital sent specific guidelines for doctors on who should receive ventilators in light of the shortages — a harrowing task left to physicians on the front lines.

“I watched like three people die on Saturday - nothing we can do. Zero. You feel defeated,” one city doctor who works at a public hospital with similar guidelines told BuzzFeed News. “You feel drained.”

The doctor asked to remain anonymous, as they were afraid of losing their job should they be identified.

“There’s a list about six [types of] patients that do not get put on a vent. ‘It makes no sense, they’re going to die soon anyway, so let them die’ - like that’s the crazy thought process. This shit hurts,” they said.

During the coronavirus crisis, the steady tone of a heart monitor that signals health officials need to intervene immediately might go unanswered. Somehow that sound, which most of us recognize only from episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, is now the backdrop for health care officials navigating a hospital’s intensive care unit.

“Normally in the real world, you never let that happen so you never really see that. That’s how it was on Saturday. You saw the heart rate go down, the blood pressure go down, the oxygen go down and then everything just flatlines and stops. Literally, we looked at each other and said ‘what else can we do? Nothing,’” the doctor recalled.

“And then guess what? We’re so morbid. We’re so jaded. Guess what’s the first thing we think of [when a patient dies]? ‘Oh shit, we got a new ventilator, let’s get somebody on the ventilator!’”

Doctors, like the one interviewed by BuzzFeed News, are having to reckon with their decisions. Many times that reality only hits at home, when they’re alone, many of them quarantining from the rest of their family members. “When I went home, I was like, what the fuck? I ordered another patient to go on a ventilator when a man just died!”

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. ... Never.”

New York City has become the epicenter of the pandemic. According to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, there are 92,743 cases in New York state and 2,473 deaths at the time of this post, with many of them coming from New York City. The crisis is taking a toll on the city’s health care system, especially as it relates to ventilators and protective equipment for health care professionals. Ventilators, the doctor explained, are the safest way to assist patients with COVID-19, as other treatments create more aerosols and could contaminate the hospital.

“It’s scary and it’s tough,” the doctor said. “I think what’s scary is that the resources are missing. This is the richest country in the world and they’re out here talking about recycling masks. ... Now we’re using the same one all day. We’re using the same gown all day. You don’t really have the time to change, you’re just running from one patient to the next, one patient to the next, one patient to the next.”

And then there’s the pace at which the disease ravages each victim.

“Literally, I went out to the visiting area - because visitors aren’t allowed - to talk to the daughter. [The] mom is doing fine, her numbers are OK, we’re just going to watch her and we’re going to see,” they said. Within six minutes of the update, the doctor had to provide another update: “I had to intubate your mother.”

It’s “that fast. That fast,” thye said.

It happened a second time, to a different patient, on the same day.

“I go out to tell the husband ‘OK, everything looks good.’ I go back in, oxygen levels drop, we have to intubate her. ... The crazy thing is how fast people go down and die. Literally, like you walk out and go to the bathroom and pee and come back and you’re running around and your patient is dying.”

“The other day I felt defeated. The patient came in on a code. We looked at each other. The patient had to die. There was nothing we could do.” Any feelings of guilt were upended by the next patient to come through the doors when they had to tell EMS they had no ventilators. EMS said they had nowhere else to go. The patient died.

On March 26, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo approved ventilator splitting, in which hospitals could use a single machine to treat two patients. But the idea is controversial and was condemned by several medical associations, calling the practice unsafe “because it cannot be done safely with current equipment.” The Trump administration, in an open letter Tuesday, called for hospitals to share ventilators with guidelines that the method should only be considered “as an absolute last result.”

New York City Health and Hospitals, which runs the city’s public hospitals, said it is not going to implement ventilator splitting. "We are not implementing ventilation triage. Our commitment is to ensure every patient is treated individually and receives the care they need,” spokesperson Christopher Miller told BuzzFeed News.

For doctors, the burden friends and family take on amid the crisis does not go unnoticed, some of whom unknowingly say goodbye to their loved ones the minute they bring them into the hospital. On March 18, the city suspended all hospital visiting hours except to those who are medically essential to the patient’s care or visiting a woman in labor or someone in an imminent end-of-life situation.

“You know what’s sad too from a provider's standpoint? You know what it is to bring - let’s say - your mom, your wife, your husband, a significant other to the ER, as soon as we take them we say, ‘you can’t come in.’ We come back, maybe two hours later to say they’re not doing well, we have to intubate them. And then maybe two, three weeks later [we] tell [them] they died and they did not see their family through that whole time because they can’t come in.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Germany in Turmoil: Ukrainian Teenage Girl Pushed to Death by Illegal Iraqi Migrant
United Krack down on human rights: Graham Linehan Arrested at Heathrow Over Three X Posts, Hospitalised, Released on Bail with Posting Ban
Asian and Middle Eastern Investors Avoid US Markets
Ray Dalio Warns of US Shift to Autocracy
Eurozone Inflation Rises to 2.1% in August
Russia and China Sign New Gas Pipeline Deal
China's Robotics Industry Fuels Export Surge
Suntory Chairman Resigns After Police Probe
Gold Price Hits New All-Time Record
Von der Leyen's Plane Hit by Suspected Russian GPS Interference in an Incident Believed to Be Caused by Russia or by Pro-Peace or by Anti-Corruption European Activists
UK Fintechs Explore Buying US Banks
Greece Suspends 5% of Schools as Birth Rate Drops
Apollo to Launch $5 Billion Sports Investment Vehicle
Bolsonaro Trial Nears Close Amid US-Brazil Tension
European Banks Push for Lower Cross-Border Barriers
Poland's Offshore Wind Sector Attracts Investors
Nvidia Reveals: Two Mystery Customers Account for About 40% of Revenue
Woody Allen: "I Would Be Happy to Direct Trump Again in a Film"
Pickles are the latest craze among Generation Z in the United States.
Deadline Day Delivers Record £125m Isak Move and Donnarumma to City
Nestlé Removes CEO Laurent Freixe Following Undisclosed Relationship with Subordinate
Giuliani Seriously Injured in Accident – Trump to Award Him the Presidential Medal of Freedom
EU is getting aggressive: Four AfD Candidates Die Unexpectedly Ahead of North Rhine-Westphalia Local Elections
Lula and Putin Hold Strategic BRICS Discussions Ahead of Trump–Putin Summit
WhatsApp is rolling out a feature that looks a lot like Telegram.
Investigations Reveal Rise in ‘Sex-for-Rent’ Listings Across Canada Exploiting Vulnerable Tenants
Chinese and Indian Leaders Pursue Amity Amid Global Shifts
European Union Plans for Ukraine Deployment
ECB Warns Against Inflation Complacency
Concerns Over North Cyprus Casino Development
Shipping Companies Look Beyond Chinese Finance
Rural Exodus Fueling European Wildfires
China Hosts Major Security Meeting
Chinese Police Successfully Recover Family's Savings from Livestream Purchases
Germany Marks a Decade Since Migrant Wave with Divisions, Success Stories, and Political Shifts
Liverpool Defeat Arsenal 1–0 with Szoboszlai Free-Kick to Stay Top of Premier League
Prince Harry and King Charles to Meet in First Reunion After 20 Months
Chinese Stock Market Rally Fueled by Domestic Investors
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
Ukrainian Nationalist Politician Andriy Parubiy Assassinated in Lviv
Corporate America Cuts Middle Management as Bosses Take On Triple the Workload
Parents Sue OpenAI After Teen’s Death, Alleging ChatGPT Encouraged Suicide
Amazon Faces Lawsuit Over 'Buy' Label on Digital Streaming Content
Federal Reserve Independence Questioned Amid Trump’s Push to Reshape Central Bank
British Politics Faces Tumultuous Autumn After Summer of Rebellions and Rising Farage Momentum
US Appeals Court Rules Against Most Trump-Era Tariffs
UK Sought Broad Access to Apple Users’ Data, Court Filing Reveals
UK Bank Shares Dive Over Potential Tax on Sector
Germany’s Auto Industry Sheds 51,500 Jobs in First Half of 2025 Amid Deepening Crisis
Bruce Willis Relocated Due to Advanced Dementia
×