More than 6,000 mental health professionals volunteered to provide over-the-phone counseling to New Yorkers struggling with anxiety associated with the coronavirus outbreak.
As New York become the hardest-hit state in the union, Gov. Andrew Cuomo sent out a plea last week for mental health professionals to make time to provide free counseling to people who may struggle with depression, anxiety, grief, or other mental health issues as a result of the spread of the pandemic. On Wednesday, he announced the state was flooded with professionals willing to help.
“We’ve talked about the emotional stress that this brings on people. And the mental health stress and the mental health challenges. No one is really talking about this. We’re all concerned about the immediate critical need, the life and the death, life and death of the immediate situation, which is right,” Cuomo said during a news conference in Albany. “But don’t underestimate the emotional trauma that people are feeling and the emotional health issues.”
He continued: “We asked for mental health professionals to voluntarily sign up to provide online mental health services. Six thousand mental health professionals agreed to volunteer to provide mental health services for people who need it. How beautiful is that?”
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Cuomo said the hotline for people to call and receive counseling was active and accepting calls. He added: “God bless the 6,000 mental health professionals who are doing this 100% free. On top of whatever they have to do in their normal practice. I’m sure in their normal practice, they’re busy.”
The governor also noted that more than 40,000 retired nurses, doctors, and other healthcare workers similarly accepted the call to return to work to help fill demand in hospitals.
“God bless them, 40,000 people have signed up as a surge healthcare force, 2,000 physicians, anesthesiologists, emergency room technicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse anesthetists, respiratory, [registered nurses], [licensed practical nurses]. Forty thousand people have signed up. That is a very, that’s a big, big deal,” Cuomo said. “You can create beds, you can find the equipment, you have to have the staff.”
As of Wednesday morning, New York had more than 25,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 210 related deaths.
The White House coronavirus task force on Tuesday urged anyone who has been in New York recently to quarantine themselves for two weeks from the time they left the state.
