Medical students offer a helping hand to New York City healthcare workers
Medical students in New York start NYC COVIDSitters, a volunteer program providing free services like child care, pet care, tutoring and running errands for healthcare workers on the front lines of the coronavirus fight.
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A group of New York medical students have been volunteering their time to help those on the front lines fighting the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Gunjan Desai, a third-year medical student at Ross University, founded NYC COVIDSitters, the New York chapter of a program started in Minnesota, which provides free services for health care workers. Those services can include childcare, pet care, running errands or even online tutoring.
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Desai was inspired to help after hearing the struggles health care workers were going through firsthand from her family members.
“My sister's a registered nurse and she would come home and tell us her stories from what she's been witnessing, especially during the peak of the pandemic. And she was super stressed out, [she'd] come home crying all the time. And the biggest thing that she would repeat every day is how her co-workers were finding it really difficult to find a caretaker for their children,” Desai told Fox News.
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For Dr. Kathryn Scharbach, a doctor at Mount Sinai hospital, NYC COVIDSitter has been a saving grace. Dr. Scharbach moved out of her home in order to protect her family for four weeks after being assigned to work on adult COVID-19 patients. Unable to help her wife take care of their two children, ages 4 and 6, she said if it were not for NYC COVIDSitters she's not sure what her family would have done.
“It basically has made it so that our family can function. Without that, we were just stuck. There was just no way to make everything happen,” Scharbach said.
Diana, the volunteer who started watching her kids three days a week, quickly became a part of their family.
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“She makes my work possible. She makes my children's life more joyful and she's getting on a subway to do that -- she's just as much of a front-line worker as anyone else, as far as I'm concerned,” said Scharbach. “She really just jumped into my family and my family's hearts and has really made a huge difference for all of us.”
So far, over 50 students have volunteered with NYC COVIDSitters and they are currently helping 18 families. Desai says anyone who wants to volunteer or who needs the services can fill out a form on their website.
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