Arkansas mom-and-daughter nursing duo help coronavirus patients in New York

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A mother-daughter duo from Arkansas who are both nurses have recently taken their medical skills to the state where the novel coronavirus has hit hardest: New York.

In the last few weeks, Uchenna Onyia-Murphy and Ona Onyia, of Little Rock, have been working in New York City-area hospitals. Uchenna Onyia-Murphy, a nurse practitioner, has been stationed at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, while her daughter, Ona Onyia, a registered nurse, has been working in the intensive care unit at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx.

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"Every day you go into work you don't know if you're going to come out OK, you don't know if you're going to have COVID and survive it," Onyia-Murphy, who is originally from Nigeria, told local news station ABC 7. 

Both women are staying at the same hotel, but are living in separate rooms for social distancing purposes. That said, Onyia, 23, noted that having her mother nearby has been a source of comfort when coming home from a long day.

"The other day my mom hand-washed my scrubs because I was so tired that I didn't want to go to the laundromat, she came into my room and hand-washed my scrubs for me," she said.

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"I feel like I've seen more deaths in my 21 nights than I've ever seen in my entire nursing career," Onyia added.

The mother-daughter pair recently finished their 21-day assignments at the respective hospitals but have chosen to extend them for another six weeks, according to ABC 7.