NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- NewYork-Presbyterian is opening a new field hospital at a practice field for Columbia University sports teams in Manhattan.
The Bubble at Columbia’s Baker Athletics Complex at 218th Street, where Columbia’s football and soccer teams would normally be practicing, will now hold more than 250 hospital beds for coronavirus patients.
Medical treatment is set to begin next week.
“The idea was really how do we continue to increase capacity to meet the needs of the New Yorker's showing up at our door,” said Dr. Laureen Hill, the chief operating officer of NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Hill said even if the city has hit the apex of hospitalizations, the space crunch will be here for awhile.
“It will be a long tail in terms of the hospitalized patient population decreasing,” Hill said.
The field hospital at the Baker Bubble is being staffed by veterans, former physicians, nurses and medics from the armed forces.
“They had an overwhelming response,” Hill said, calling the outbreak an unprecedented challenge.
“I have to say the response of our staff, our teams has really been awe-inspiring,” she said.
On Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio celebrated the opening of a 470-bed field hospital at the home of the U.S. Open in Queens.