By Naeisha Rose
Recently re-elected Queens Borough President Melinda Katz was at Richmond Hill last Friday to help welcome back 20 medical professionals from Jamaica Hospital and Flushing Hospital who went to Puerto Rico to provide relief work after Hurricane Maria destroyed hospitals on the commonwealth island.
“It was a good team effort here in the borough of Queens,” Katz said at the ceremony in Jamaica Hospital’s private dining room. “To give back to areas that are in desperate need is what we do here.”
The members of the mostly bilingual team consisted of physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, emergency medical technicians, paramedics and administrators from the two medical centers, which are a part of the MediSys Health Network. They were the first Queens-based hospital staff to go to the island to help.
“To our team, welcome home,” said Bruce Flanz, president & CEO of MediSys.
One of the members of the MediSys staff to be celebrated for her service was Registered Nurse Danielle Roberts, who works at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Flushing Hospital and was warmly received by the people in Puerto Rico she helped.
“While I was there their spirits were up, you would not even think there was a hurricane the way they were grateful to us,” Roberts said. “Some people didn’t have electricity and they would be going to someone else’s house to bake us a cake or do generous things to show us how much they appreciated that we were there.”
Even though her specialty is working with babies, Roberts provided urgent care to disaster victims.
“I was giving injections and seeing people with the doctors there who had acute issues,” Roberts said.
Despite having had five years of Spanish lessons in middle school and high school up until 2003, Roberts admitted she was rusty in the language and got help in becoming better in the language from some of the patients. Fellow MediSys member, Dr. Erica Cardona, translated for her sometimes. “I’m Puerto Rican and I believe in community service,” said Cardona, who is a family medicine physician at Jamaica Hospital. “It was the right thing to do.”
While there she and Roberts treated patients with colitis, pink eye, skin infections as well as skeletal and muscular complaints because of fatigue.
Together they worked at a medical station in Manatí, which is on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, according to Cardona.
They also worked at a trailer triage area that was set up in front of the United States Naval ship Comfort, which was in San Juan, the capitol of the island.
While she was on the east coast of the island, Cardona’s family was on the west coast at Rincón, and after cell service was brought back to the island she was able visit them momentarily.
“I had peace of mind [visiting my family], but the big take home thing was just to appreciate all the comforts that we have here that they are going without,” Cardona said.
“I didn’t have one patient whine about their circumstances. They were just grateful for the help we brought. They are beautiful people,” she said.
Reach reporter Naeisha Rose by e-mail at nrose
