YOUR FAVORITE LOGO TV SHOWS ARE ON PARAMOUNT+

Hospital Says Gay Nurse Who Died of COVID-19 Was Protected

Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan denies blame for the death of Kious Kelly.

Kious Kelly, a beloved assistant nursing manager at Manhattan's Mount Sinai Hospital, is reportedly the first New York medical worker to die from coronavirus. Hospital officials insist he was provided with proper protective equipment.

Mount Sinai is firing back against allegations that the hospital is to blame for the death of Kelly, who can be seen in a viral photo wearing trash bags while on duty, ostensibly as a protective measure against the virus.

According to the New York Post, Kelly was admitted to Mount Sinai with COVID-19 on March 17. The night before his death on March 24, he called his sister and told her he thought he was dying, she wrote on Facebook.

Kelly's colleagues allege they faced a critical shortage of personal protective equipment, or PPE, long before the pandemic, but the crisis only exacerbated the problem, causing the 48-year-old to contract the disease. Kelly suffered from asthma but was otherwise healthy, his sister said.

A photo widely shared on social media just days before Kelly's death shows Mount Sinai health workers dressed in garbage bags. In a statement posted on the hospital’s Facebook page, a Mount Sinai representative refuted claims that the hospital has failed to protect its staff as the pandemic ravages New York.

"To be clear: we always provide all our staff with the critically important PPE they need to safely do their job," the statement says. "In fact, the troubling photo circulating in the media specifically shows the nurses in proper PPE underneath garbage bags."

According to the New York Post, the nurses were using the bags because the PPE shortage forced them to use the same PPE between infected and non-infected patients.

A shortage of PPE is hardly specific to Mount Sinai. Hospitals across the nation are grappling with supply shortages during the pandemic.

Latest News