Houston nurse traveled to New York to fight COVID-19 pandemic

HOUSTON - When the coronavirus pandemic took over New York City leaving hospitals short-staffed, one Houston nurse dropped everything to go help.

Raul Silva has been treating COVID-19 patients in New York City for about two weeks now.

The 26-year-old ER nurse plans to spend two months at the coronavirus epicenter, where to date more than 150-thousand people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and more than 12-thousand have died from it.

Silva says he cares for 5-to-10 recovering patients at a time, and they range in age form as young as 26 to as old as 80.
He says the work is all worth it when he sees a patient recover and reunite with their family.

“You see the effort when they try to recover,” said Silva. “You see somebody trying to rehabilitate themselves. You see them trying to do exercises when they’re in bed, because they want to see their families. They want to go back to that normal life. So it’s a great feeling seeing how much commitment some of these patients have.”

Silva says he’s been a nurse for six years. He was about to get his bachelor’s degree in nursing this fall but put it on hold to help out in New York.