'Major Trustee, Please Prioritize': How NYU's emergency favors the wealthy

In the busy emergency department at New York University in Manhattan, room 20 is special.

Steps from the hospital's ambulance bay, the room is equipped with equipment to perform critical procedures or isolate people with highly infectious diseases.

Doctors say Room 20 is generally reserved for two types of patients: those whose lives hang in the line. And those who are V.I.P.s.

In September 2021, doctors were alerted that Kenneth G. Langone, whose donations to the university hospital system had led to it being renamed in his honor , was on the way. The octogenarian had stomach pains and Ward 20 was left empty for him, medical workers said. Upon arrival, Mr. Langone was taken to the room, treated for a bacterial infection, and sent home.

The following spring, Senator Chuck Schumer accompanied his woman, who was feverish and short of breath, in the emergency room. As sicker patients were treated in the hallway, the couple were ushered into ward 20, where they received expedited Covid-19 tests, according to workers who witnessed the scene. Tests came back negative.

NYU Langone denies putting V.I.P.s first, but 33 medical workers told The New York Times they had seen such patients receive preferential treatment in room 20, one of the largest private spaces in the department. A doctor was surprised to find an orthopedic specialist in the room waiting for the mother of a senior hospital worker with hip pain. Another described an older hospital administrator who was taken to ward 20 out of breath after exercising.

The treatment privileged is part of a larger pattern, according to a Times investigation. . For years, NYU ERs in Manhattan secretly prioritized donors, trustees, politicians, celebrities, and their friends and family, according to 45 medical workers, internal hospital records, and other documents. confidential reviewed by The Times.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">On hospital computers, electronic medical records sometimes detail whether patients have donated to the hospital or how they are connected to executives, according to screenshots taken by frustrated doctors in recent years and shared with The Times.

"Lead admin, please prioritize," said one from July 2020.

Des Dozens of doctors said they felt pressure to prioritize V.I.Ps. Many saw these patients outrank sicker people for CT scans and MRIs. Some said specialist physicians, often in short supply, were diverted from other cases to attend to mild complaints from high-priority patients.

Many hospitals offer exclusive concierge services to the wealthy. But emergency rooms are built around the principle of medical triage: that the sickest patients, regardless of their ability to pay, are treated first. Everyone has to wait.

At NYU Langone, one of the nation's leading medical institutions, some doctors said this process has been turned upside down.

"As emergency department doctors, we have two important skills: triage and resuscitation," said Dr. Kimbia Arno, who worked in the emergency department in 2020 and 2021. “This system is a direct challenge to what we do and what we were trained to do.”

“Provider stress is harmful,” said said Dr. Anand Swaminathan, an ER doctor from 2009 to 2018. "It's the fact that I get multiple calls, from multiple people, asking me to drop everything to treat a V.I.P."

Eleven doctors told The Times they quit the emergency department in part because they objected to favoring V.I.P.

Some residents—physicians in their first years of practice—completed seniors at the national body that accredits medical training programs. Frustrations included NYU's "special treatment" of trustees, donors and their families, according to documents reviewed by The Times. The group's subsequent investigation confirmed that some physicians "felt pressured to see V.I.P. patients first" and that they "feel a sense of fear, intimidation and retaliation for not expediting V.I.P. patient care." ."

The Internal Revenue Service