New York doctor on Covid duty kills self

NYT News Service | Apr 29, 2020, 07:10 IST

A top emergency room doctor at a Manhattan hospital that treated many coronavirus patients died by suicide on Sunday, her father and the police said. Dr Lorna Breen was medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital. Her father, Dr Philip Breen, said she had described devastating scenes of the toll the coronavirus took on patients.
“She tried to do her job, and it killed her,” he said. Philip Breen said his daughter had contracted the coronavirus but had gone back to work after recuperating. Lorna, 49, did not have a history of mental illness, her father said. She had described to him an onslaught of patients who were dying before they could even be taken out of ambulances.
He said: “Make sure she’s praised as a hero, because she was. She’s a casualty just as much as anyone else who has died.”