One of the region’s largest health systems commemorated the one-year anniversary of COVID-19 with a ceremony in the Bronx last week.
On Thursday, March 11, Montefiore Medicine honored frontline workers from the Bronx, Westchester, and Rockland counties with a remembrance ceremony, “celebrating the bravery, excellence, and sacrifice of the Montefiore healthcare workers who have provided critical care to tens of thousands of COVID-19 patients since confirming Montefiore’s first COVID-19 case on the same day, March 11, one year ago.”
Joined by the Every Voice Children’s Choir and Orchestra of the Bronx, Montefiore CEO Dr. Philip Ozuah celebrated the doctors, nurses, and other frontline personnel in a speech that praised the heroes who “day-in and day-out put their lives on the line to protect New York’s most vulnerable communities.”
“This past year, we witnessed the savagery of the slow-motion murder of one man at the knee of another in a brutal display of racial injustice, and we witnessed this new virus savage poor and minority communities, vividly exposing how poor social conditions combine to leave entire communities particularly vulnerable to the lethality of COVID-19,” Ozuah said.
During a ceremony dedicated to the members of the Montefiore family who were lost to the COVID-19, many stood tn front of the main Montefiore hospital, which was lit up with colorful animations of healthcare workers and the words “United we remember. United we rise.” displayed across the building.
Dr. Ozuah was joined by Golden Globe winner and multiple Grammy nominee Jon Batiste, bandleader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert; it was then that Batiste reminded those gathered that “Above all our problems is purpose.”
