DOH members struggle to get power, communications to hospitals, nursing homes By SHERRY HALBROOK While the public’s attention was riveted on rescue workers desperately searching through the rubble of the World Trade Center for survivors, the life-threatening effects of the catastrophe actually reached much farther. And PEF members at the state Health Department were among public-sector professionals whose dedication and skills helped bring order from the chaos and vital services to the people who needed them most. For instance, Bob Iovine — an emergency medical services coordinator for the DOH Metropolitan Area Regional Office — worked tirelessly with other city, state and federal officials to help get and keep electrical power at New York University Downtown Hospital (formerly Beekman) near the WTC. “The hospital has been operating on electricity from an emergency generator that’s about to give out,” Iovine said in an interview six days after the attack. “We’re trying to get them connected to another generator , so the one they’ve been using can be serviced.” “So far, the hospital has only 25 phone lines working, so we are working with Verizon to try to get them more lines,” he said. “And we managed to get some medications to them that they were running out of.” A nearby nursing home had no phones, he said, until his group arranged for Verizon to bring them 20 cell phones, so they could have at least one for every floor. “Our people in Troy have been busy calling in 20 ambulances and crews from different parts of the state each day,” Iovine said. The PEF member said he and four other PEF members — Lisa Burns, Thomas Fortune, Mark Hartz and James Mihalko — who are also EMS coordinators from the NYS Health Department, had just begun a training course in San Antonio, Texas on September 11 when the WTC was attacked. “We were ordered to return immediately, but we couldn’t get a flight because all of the planes were grounded,” Iovine said. “The people in Texas were extremely good to us. They fed us and cared for us until DOH arranged for a small plane owned by the state of Texas to bring us home.” “I got to Albany Thursday night and caught a train to Pennsylvania Station in New York City Friday morning and went right to work in the Health Department command center at 5 Penn Plaza. “Everyone at DOH, from top to bottom, has been working as hard as they can on this,” Iovine says. “The teamwork is great.” In addition to those who returned from Texas with Iovine, among the many others PEF members at DOH who worked or volunteered in the emergency were Andy Wendt, John Waite, Joseph Farrell, Helaine Leib, Brian Devine, Bill Conron, Eli Gorelik, Ray Thielke and Paul Stein. The Communicator Home Page

1,000 donors flood blood bank By SHERRY HALBROOK Picture a hospital blood bank set up to collect an average of 20 units of blood per day, suddenly finding itself with 1,000 donors lined up at its door and determined to donate. PEF member Virginia Greer, a teaching and research center nurse 2 at SUNY Stony Brook University Hospital, is one of eight nurses who keep the Long Island hospital’s blood bank running seven days a week. On September 11, Greer opened the blood bank at 7:30 a.m. but within three hours, as word spread about the terrorist attacks, long lines of donors began to form. “Our hospital employees started lining up as soon as they heard about it, then visitors of the patients came, and then people off the street who had been turned away from other centers came,” Greer says. “More than 1,000 people came on the first day. Two girls said they had waited for five hours to donate, and they were happy to do it. They said they wouldn’t leave until they donated,” Greer recalls. “We had a lot of first time donors. We had to give many people appointments to come back. It was more than our small bank could handle. Normally, when we have a blood drive, to get 50 units is phenomenal; we aim for 30-50 in a day. We collected 401 units of whole blood over four days,” she says. But it wasn’t just the hordes of people wanting to give blood that were so impressive. It was the willingness of everyone to do as much as they possibly could do to help. “I worked non-stop for 15 1/2 hours on the first day,” Greer says. “My feet were killing me, but I was determined to hang in there. Two women, who used to work here, volunteered to come in and we also had a tremendous number of volunteers from all over the hospital and campus. “Nursing staff came from all over the hospital to help wherever they could do good. Everybody came together to work as a team. No one had to ask them, they just showed up, and no one left until the day ended, even if it was 11 p.m. “People brought down extra chairs from all over the hospital, and local stores and restaurants brought food and beverages to us, because no one stopped to get a meal,” she says. “What seems so remarkable to me,” Greer adds, “is that in all those days and hours, I never heard one person complain about anything.”