NY Nursing Home Lends Ventilators To NYC Coronavirus Patients

NEW YORK CITY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo stopped by a nursing home upstate to thank its staff for lending ventilators to New York City, where the number of patients seriously ill with the new coronavirus has left the potentially life-saving breathing machines in short supply.

The Pathways Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Niskayuna lent 35 ventilators to downstate hospitals amid the coronavirus pandemic, but Cuomo said Sunday that he'd opted to return them.

Cuomo also brought cookies to staffers and nursing home residents, calling their offer "an incredibly beautiful, generous gesture."

"It was unsolicited; no one called and asked," Cuomo told reporters. "In some ways it's the last place that you would think would come forward because it's a nursing home."

Initial projections for this past week showed New York City hospitals would see about 300 people daily needing a ventilator, but the average was roughly a third of that, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.

Previously, de Blasio said New York City would need 30,000 ventilators to handle the outbreak.

This story has been updated to clarify that the governor was returning the ventilators lent by the nursing home.

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