The COVID-19 crisis has galvanized an unprecedented global healthcare effort to ‘flatten the curve’ and stem the spread of the virus. Yet, despite our best efforts, many healthcare facilities and emergency services are overwhelmed by the number of patients requiring treatment. In turn, healthcare professionals are having to dig deep and find it within themselves to perform in the face of great adversity.

These uplifting stories of thanks and appreciation pay tribute to our resolute emergency professionals.

A 100-strong caravan through Queens

According to an article in QNS, May 13th saw a caravan of over hundred vehicles driven through Queens by healthcare union staff to pay tribute to those on the frontlines. 1199SEIU President George Gresham had this to say: “We are here today to honor the brave and courageous healthcare workers who have been putting their health, and their lives, on the line every day to care for others. All of our workers are essential; nurses, technicians, cleaners and all the others. They are extremely courageous to risk getting sick to help those who cannot take care of themselves.”

#Grateful4You

NBC is collecting stories of gratitude and kindness under the hashtag #Grateful4You, some of which include:

• Sauce Pizzeria delivered as many as 400 pizzas for free to New York City’s hospitals. Upon discovering this, the pizzeria’s landlord gave them three months rent and a $20,000 donation.
• 'Rainbows Over Staten Island and Beyond' is a Facebook group that’s dedicated to spreading kindness and positivity in the form of colorful rainbow decorations for healthcare workers in the Staten Island area.
• At 7pm every evening, residents of New York can be heard clapping, cheering and banging pots and pans to encourage their frontline heroes.

Michelle Obama offers a personal word of thanks

“You embody the very best of who we are. And I know that we will get through this crisis because of you.”

Michelle Obama thanked Chicago’s healthcare workers in an audio message shared on UChicago Medicine’s website. The former First Lady grew up in Chicago’s South Side and commended the workers in an area that is clearly very close to her heart, saying how “profoundly grateful Barack and I are for the heroic work that all of you are doing right now in Chicago.”

You can listen to the full audio transcript here.

‘Deep discounts’ for healthcare workers wanting to isolate

“We need to provide the kind of support that increasingly is needed for a workforce that is deeply stressed out, deeply stretched.”

Mercury News shared this uplifting article about California Governor Gavin Newsom and his initiative to support healthcare workers who wish to self-isolate or quarantine away from family. The decision to give healthcare workers “deep discounts” on hotel rooms near their places of work comes after the Governor heard stories of workers sleeping in cars to avoid infecting their loved ones. 

Governor Newsom said, “I am really pleased today to announce an effort in the state of California to directly support those caregivers, those healthcare workers, those frontline heroes, by providing them vouchers and stipends and in many cases, for low-wage workers, 100 percent reimbursable costs for hotels all up and down the state of California.”

Strength in solidarity

While those of us who are not on the frontlines can only imagine the hardships our healthcare workers are facing on a daily basis, we can offer them our unwavering gratitude and support. Their daily sacrifices will be the deciding factor in our eventual return to normalcy.

We at Graham Medical hope that the above stories have proved how much the nation values you, the healthcare worker on the frontlines fighting for our country’s future. If you’d like more healthcare information as the pandemic unfolds, we invite you to subscribe to our blog.