After TIME magazine, CRAINS hails Dr Parvez Mir as New York’s Covid hero

Ziraat Times Team Report

Srinagar: After TIME magazine hailed Kashmir-origin Dr Parvez Mir, Director of Pulmonary and Critical Care at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, as one of New York’s most notable Covid19 heroes, the doctor has now featured in CRAIN’s Notable in Health Care 2020 in its New York Business 2020 Special Issue.

“New York state’s first reported Covid-19 death took place at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, where Dr. Parvez Mir has practiced for more than two decades. The 350-bed hospital on the border of Brooklyn and Queens would eventually treat more than 2,000 Covid-19 patients. Hundreds died, as did staff. Many refused to come to work, but not Mir, who at one point worked for six weeks without a day off. With staff in short supply, he recruited a pulmonologist from Arkansas”, CRAINS wrote in its special issue.

“He turned to the blogs of doctors abroad for insight into treating Covid-19. As the crisis unfolded, Mir told Time magazine that caring for Covid-19 patients is a way to practice living his Muslim faith”, CRAINS wrote.

Earlier in June, TIME magazine, while featuring Dr Mir’s Wyckoff Medical Centre in its cover story, wrote that “with a capacity of around 350 beds, Wyckoff has treated more than 2,000 COVID-19 patients, the vast majority of them Latino and Black with poor health insurance or none at all. Almost 300 died. Nearly 200 Wyckoff workers became infected; others could not handle their fear of infection and stopped coming to work.”

Dr Mir took over the intensive-care unit at Wyckoff—a 16-bed facility within the hospital—in 1998, and he’s been here ever since. From the ward’s 10th-floor windows, he can look across the East River to Manhattan, to wealthy neighborhoods with some of the city’s lowest COVID-19 death rates.

TIME magazine, while featuring this picture of Dr Mir in June, 2020, earlier wrote:

Mir prays with his family during the last day of fasting during Ramadan on May 23. A devout Muslim, he believes caring for COVID-19 patients is a way for him to practice living his faith. He fasted for all 30 days without taking even a sip of water while working long shifts in PPE. His mother sent him chapters from the Quran about prayers during plagues.

“I do pray every morning and ask to keep safe from this calamity,” he said. “To keep myself safe, keep my family safe and keep my family at Wyckoff safe, I’ve been saying these prayers all the time.”