the best. >> that's st. barnabus, st. barnabus lost one of is doctors in the last couple of days, a trauma surgeon, dr. verrier, born and raised in haiti, the father of three children, he worked in the trauma center of st. barnabus, a health care worker like all health care workers are trying to keep coronavirus patients alive and he became infected and died today at the age of 59. >>> front line health worker know that their lives are at stake while they are doing this work, and yet, remarkably, this far into it, with all of the support that we as a country are trying to give them, it's not enough. we are still seeing hospital staff have to literally protest to try to get themselves protective equipment, to try to get enough staff, relief staff, on board to share the burden in hospitals that have crippling numbers of cases this. for example was today. this is brooklyn today. >> we need more nurses at the hospital. the nurses are working short. the nurses are working stressed. the nurses are working hard. i want my nurses

at st. barnabus to say thank you for what you're doing. each one has a little note on it. here's dr. patty and his colleagues at the st. barnabus emergency room being very happy to have them. you see how they're all holding them. i love this picture. and look at this, this is fascinating. one of the things we have noticed with dr. patty when he has sent us his check-in videos from his shift at the e.r. in st. barnabus is that he's worried that his patients can't connect with him or see his face because of the mask and the shield he has to wear. so you see where his lapel would be if he was wearing a suit, it's backwards there but he's got his name. we noticed he drew his name and a little smiley face on his name tag so even if his patients can't see his face through his gear, they can see that. it's a sweet human touch we noticed about dr. patti in these videos. dr. patti said someone else in the world was also struck by that and they decided to come up with a solution to the problem that he's trying to fix here. they printed a picture of dr. patti's actually smiling face

msnbc's craig melvin is at st. barnabus hospital in the bronx. what are you hearing this morning? >> reporter: hey, eamon, good morning to you. let me step out and show you sort of what we're seeing more of this morning, ambulances have been pulling in pretty much nonstop over the past hour, and these are ambulances not just from new york city, but ambulances from all over the country. there was an ambulance here that just left with virginia plates, we've seen massachusetts plates, there's one down here with illinois plates as well, we've seen a number of patients taken out of the back of these ambulances. we don't know their condition but we do know they have roughly 200 covid-19 patients here at st. barnabus hospital. they've had more than 100 patients die from covid-19 here. for folks not familiar with the area, we are in the bronx. this is bronx county, and by most measures, this is the most unhealthy county in all of new york state. a higher incidence of diabetes and hypertension, preexisting underlying conditions that complicate covid-19 when you do get it. so that's one rea

ernest patti, at st. barnabus hospital in the bronx. here he was a week ago tonight. >> the battle continues. the end of another shift. we still have a large number of people intubated down here. i believe there are 13 intubated. and about five or six on c-pap. >> as you heard him there, dr. paatti sort of fighting to be heard over the background noise in the icu, in the e.r., not your garden variety hospital background noise, that's the sound of multiple patients being mechanically kept alive. that's the sound of more than a dozen ventilators being used. well, today, we heard from dr. patti again, with an update on the situation for him at st. barnabus. >> today is friday, april 17th, the first thing you notice is the noise level is much less than last friday. significantly decreased. i have to say the hospital is still full and still running at max capacity, but the emergency department is definitely a little less congested. let's hope it stays this way. i'll report at the end of the shift. stay safe. stay healthy. stay strong. >> dr.

we heard from another doctor at s st. barnabus hospital, not seeing much of the leveling off but hopeful it could plateau in the next couple days. we can tell you local officials and the governor here as you've been hearing, social distancing has been working, and that's why over the last several days, last three or four days we have seen that overall drop in the average of hospitalizations, and the hope is that continues today, but again, that rising death toll, the gates foundation, the projection funded by the gates foundation is actually predicting today could be the peak of deaths in new york. so we'll have to wait and see as we await the new numbers in the coming hours. eamon? >> gabe gutierrez live in new york outside elmhurst hospital, thank you. stay healthy, my friend. >>> a live look at the senate floor, majority leader mitch mcconnell is expected to move unanimously to pass a small business relief bill, daring democrats to block the $250 billion funding bill that is being voted on today. democratic senator dou