Since the recording of this interview, Dorchester’s Carney Hospital has taken even further action to aid in its transformation into a coronavirus dedicated care center. Steward Healthcare, the Carney’s parent company, has moved to close non-coronavirus related units within the building to make more room to care for patients of COVID-19. The detox unit, run by Bay Cove Human Services, that Laurie Chaskes worked in was among those units shut down; employees were informed at 11:30 AM on April 1 that they had to pack up the unit by the end of the day so the hospital could begin the process of changing it into a COVID-19 dedicated unit. Patients will be transferred to an alternate unit in Brighton, also owned by the same company that sponsored this one, Commonwealth Care Alliance, but the Dorchester unit employees are currently out of a job. Other areas that were shut down within the Carney include the surgical unit, which is currently being made over to hold coronavirus patients. As the United States’ confirmed case count continues to rise, currently almost at 600,000 confirmed cases, it appears management at Steward wants the Carney to utilize every possible space for housing those affected by the pandemic. The mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh, recently announced a new curfew, as citizens are no longer allowed to be out between the hours of 9 PM and 6 AM without an essential reason, and the mayor has also said that Boston’s response to the coronavirus will almost definitely be continuing into July and August.
This graph shows both the daily increase and total count of confirmed coronavirus cases in the state of Massachusetts. It’s not current, only going up to April 5, but one can get a sense of the scale of the growth, and the current figure is around 28,000.
NU Journalism Chaskes 