CLEVELAND, Ohio — Last Friday, Cleveland Clinic health workers were warmly welcomed by New York-Presbyterian Hospital staff. Cleveland Clinic nurse manager Brent Whitaker says it’s not just the hospital showing thanks. The whole city has made a point to show how much they appreciate healthcare workers flying from different states to help them in their battle against COVID-19. 

• A Cleveland Clinic nurse manager said he received a very warm welcome
• He volunteered to work at the hospital for 4 weeks to support doctors and nurses who are showing extreme signs of fatigue
• He says the experience so far has been eye-opening

“The entire city has been very welcoming.There's been a couple times when you walk in, like for night shift, the certain time you'll have the whole city kind of cheering you along, making noise, banging pans. So that's really one of those that makes it tough to not feel special for coming out here," said Whitaker.

Whitaker says although it’s nice, he didn’t go to New York for praise. He’s at New York-Presbyterian to support doctors and nurses, many of whom are showing extreme signs of  fatigue that comes with caring for so many sick patients. 

“They're tired, they're beat down, so our coming in, we're hoping to give them a little bit of a breather so maybe they can go into a different area and care for patients that aren't as sick. But honestly, the whole hospital has a lot of COVID-positive patients, and we are just ecstatic that we can provide some of that relief,” he said.

Whitaker says working in a hospital completely inundated with COVID-19 patients has been eye-opening, to say the least. 

“From a nursing aspect, to walk through a hospital and see almost every single patient look exactly the same is a very weird thing to see. You know, so we're used to seeing patients in all different levels of care, and to see almost every single patient, one right after another look the same, it's very eye-opening, that was first thing all of us talked about,” Whitaker said.

Physician Judy Welsh says she expected to see a lot of critically ill patients with COVID-19 at New York-Presbyterian, and that's exactly she saw. But she learned a few new things about the virus as well — things that are important for everyone to know. 

“Everybody I saw was really really sick, and the vast majority of patients presented with coronavirus infections. I think what we're not hearing is how differently coronavirus presents in different patients and that's my main takeaway, is that nobody comes in with a classic presentation that you expect. I didn't expect so many patients to be coming in with problems that started a month ago that could have been better treated last month and I think the one thing I really want to express to viewers, if you have an emergency, if you have a worry about your health, please don't hesitate to come into our emergency departments at the Cleveland Clinic,” Welsh said.

Most of the Cleveland Clinic team will be in New York for four weeks and will return sooner only if there is a surge of COVID-19 cases in Cleveland. Welsh and Whitaker both say the experience highlights  the importance of healthcare workers all over the world being there for one another. 

“Sticking together as one healthcare family is incredibly crucial, especially in a time like this. I would hope that similarly, if we were in a position like New York was in, in Cleveland, I would really hope that we would get that kind of benefit from others outside our system," said Welsh.

“Continue this idea that we just help each other, we help out the brotherhood, the sisterhood of healthcaregivers, that someone's in need, that we do respond and help one another rather than just be like, whoo i'm glad that's not us, you know, the clinic stepped up and said, no, it's not us at this time and we can provide that help,” Whitaker said.