Team from NYU Langone scours NYC hospitals and medical offices for equipment needed in coronavirus fight

John McBride, a project manager for medical equipment planning at NYU Langone.(Courtesy of McBride)

The nonstop hunt for life-saving equipment began as soon as New York City’s hospitals shut down all elective procedures on patients because of the coronavirus outbreak.

For John McBride, a project manager for medical equipment planning at NYU Langone in Manhattan, that decision meant dozens of medical offices were no longer serving patients — and it created an opportunity for a hospital network straining under the weight of the pandemic.

The medical equipment in those facilities could now be repurposed to retrofit rooms into intensive care units.

A wireless patient monitor (telemetry device).(John McBride)

McBride estimates he’s helped set up more than 70 new ICUs by zigzagging around the city to commandeer vital signs monitors and other equipment for the past month — all while sick with COVID-19 symptoms.

“It’s a blur. It’s just a nonstop barrage,” he said. “It’s overwhelming. Constant calls — where’s the equipment? How much equipment? Let’s push. Let’s push. Let’s push.”

While elected leaders have been wringing their hands about the need to secure more machines to keep people alive, McBride has been scouring NYU Langone’s facilities for equipment to create new ICU units.

“People could die if they don’t have this stuff,” he said. “An installation that would normally be planned many months ahead and take at least a week to install was done in a matter of hours.”

McBride told the Daily News he started having coronavirus symptoms in early March — nausea, coughing, shortness of breath, body aches — everything except the telltale high temperature. Initially, he didn’t get a test. When he did, about a month after first showing symptoms, the test came back negative. He expects that when he takes an antibody test, it will show he had the virus.

John McBride, a project manager for medical equipment planning at NYU Langone.(Courtesy of John McBride)

His 8-year old daughter also began showing symptoms in mid-March, but recovered within days.

“My daughter asked me if I was going to die from coronavirus," he said. "I told her that I wouldn’t, because I’ve already had it.”

McBride isn’t the only one at NYU Langone tasked with gathering equipment to create ICUs.

Raghu Malipeddi, the hospital’s manager of medical technology planning, helped ensure that anesthesia machines were located and then converted into desperately needed ventilators.

“It was all hands on deck,” he said.

Malipeddi leaves his pregnant wife and five-year-old daughter each day to commute to the city from the Poconos. He acknowledged the fear and stress involved in a job made so much more important by the coronavirus pandemic, but likened what he does to a calling.

“We are supposed to do this work,” he said.