WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Dr. Clay Block, a 57-year-old kidney specialist, was among the first wave of dozens of health care workers from the White River Junction VA Medical Center to depart to areas in the Northeast that have been hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Block arrived at the Manhattan VA Medical Center on April 5 to assist a nephrology department that was shorthanded due to illness and exhausted.
“Many people were working every day,” he said. “There was really no relief.”
Block spoke by phone on Wednesday after returning to the Upper Valley last Saturday. A Hanover resident, Block is now in self-quarantine at his camp on Lake Morey in Fairlee for two weeks. The VA also is offering accommodations to returning clinicians who need to quarantine at their request, a spokeswoman said.
Block is one of 41 White River Junction-based VA employees who have deployed in recent weeks. Others who have gone to New York have included physicians, nurses and a dietitian. Two carpenters went to build negative pressure rooms at the Bedford (Mass.) VA Healthcare System in early April. Thirty registered nurses have gone to the VA Boston Healthcare System, including 12 who left on Wednesday.
New York City has had roughly 160,000 cases of COVID-19, the respiratory disease first identified in Wuhan, China, late last year, according to the city’s health department. Of those, more than 41,000 have been hospitalized.
More than 12,500 are confirmed to have died from COVID-19, with another 5,300 deaths considered to have a “probable” link to the disease.
Massachusetts has seen more than 62,000 cases, with more than 3,400 deaths.
On his arrival in New York, Block said he was struck by the low volume of both vehicle and foot traffic on the city streets. He stayed at a hotel in Manhattan, a little over a mile from the VA.
From what he could tell, the others staying there also were on some form of deployment.
At the hospital, he said normal operations had all but ceased and most employees had been reassigned to COVID-19 cases. For example, he said, an oral surgeon had been redeployed to the surgical intensive care unit.
The Manhattan VA, which sits on East 23rd Street next to Bellevue Hospital near FDR Drive, has opened its doors to the public as well as to veterans during the crisis.
Block said about two-thirds of the patients he saw were veterans with the other third coming from hospitals around the city that were struggling to keep up with surge of COVID-19 patients.
Block said at least 90% of the patients he treated during his three weeks in New York had COVID-19.
Though he said it’s unclear how COVID-19 affects the kidneys, it appears to do so in both direct and indirect ways. Of the patients who need to be placed on a ventilator for mechanical assistance breathing, Block said, about 20% to 40% of patients develop acute kidney failure.
“For me, it was very rewarding to be of help,” Block said.
Still, he said his shifts sometimes lasted 14 hours, it was sad to lose patients and strange not to see family members or friends at the bedside or in the waiting rooms. Of those who did survive, in some cases it seemed they were “just treading water.”
A few of the patients he met on his first day were still there on his 20th day.
“I hope they’ll make it, but I’m not sure,” he said. “A few really were getting better, and that was quite gratifying.”
While Block observed that many of the patients with serious symptoms were older and had underlying medical conditions such as diabetes or heart disease, others didn’t appear to and some were his age. But he said he had to put the risk of falling seriously ill himself out of his mind while he continued his work.
“It must be like if you’re surfing and you think about the sharks, you won’t go surfing,” he said.
When he got out of the hospital in time, Block said he enjoyed hearing the honking, cheering and banging of pots that people around the city have taken to doing at 7 p.m. in support of health care workers.
“It was really moving,” he said.
Block said he plans to get back to work here soon, first using telemedicine and then back at the VA Medical Center itself if he remains COVID-19-free.
But he would be glad to go back to New York, should he be needed there again and if his colleagues in White River Junction could spare him.
He said his absence requires sacrifice on his co-workers’ part in picking up evening and weekend on-call shifts.
He said he would “definitely go if I’m able to and if I’m needed.”
Block, who worked at Dartmouth-Hitchcock for 15 years before joining the VA in 2015, said “the VA is a really good model for sending people where they’re needed.”
It appears that Dartmouth-Hitchcock also has supported New York hospitals during this crisis. NewYork-Presbyterian, which has several hospitals in New York City, ran an ad in the Sunday Valley News thanking the “amazing health care workers of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health” who “came to our rescue.”
NY-P also ran the ad in other papers around the country thanking health care workers from other hospitals in those locations for coming to the organization’s aid.
Some of D-H’s employees are in the National Guard and have deployed to New York City, D-H spokeswoman Audra Burns said in an email. She said its not possible to determine how many or in what capacity they’ve been serving until they return.
Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
