A Message From Dr. Hayashi To Fight COVID-19 All Together

Dear Patients,

I hope this message finds you and your family all well amid the virus scare and many uncertainties.

Effective as of today, in order to ensure a safe environment for our patients, our staff and their families amid the outbreak of COVID-19 in NY and NJ areas, I asked all of my staff temporarily to switch working from home starting today until further notice (hopefully for the next 2 weeks only) and create our patients safer environment at the same time.

It was not an easy decision. After careful thoughts over the weekend, while looking at the situation and the infection number increasing daily so dramatically in NYC, I had to go with my own intuition for this kind of urgent matter after learning my lesson from 9/11.

What I know or all I know is that I have to do the right thing to protect you and your family as well as working together as one community to contain this infection. This is all or none. We can not do it a little bit. We either do this or we don’t. Or I’m afraid we will follow what we are seeing in Italy today. This is very critical 2 weeks to flatten out the infection curve, so our hospital personnel can accommodate all critical patients. We have many patients to fit in the risk categories and I also need to protect their wellbeing.

Therefore, we started remote patient’s consultations, using FaceTime (iPhone) or Zoom. Once your remote consultation is scheduled, we will give you detailed instructions on how to set up the online consultation from your home.

All the patients who have upcoming appointments will be contacted for their preferences 2-3 days prior during their appointment reminder call.

For the patients who need testing, such as X-rays and MRI, we will schedule your test at local testing center nearest you. After the online remote conference tool is set up by my staff, I will review the images with you via online. For the patients who need medications, we will send the prescription to your local pharmacy as usual. If you need a durable medical equipment, we will send you a link on which one you can buy online.

Please feel free to contact us (info@mikahayashi.com or 212-682-0043) if you are having trouble setting up the system. If you don’t have a smartphone or computer at home, we can also schedule the telephone consultation with me. If you need a procedure, I am going to find my colleague or a specialist for you near your home so you do not need to travel with subways and buses.

To provide you a safe environment and to contribute to the community effort to contain this virus is our top priority. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation. I also apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

I will continue to stay in touch with you all remotely during this unprecedented time. If the situation gets better, I will write to you again.

Till then please stay safe and healthy. We will overcome this together.

Sincerely,

Dr. Mika Hayashi