NEW YORK—Mayor Eric Adams announced committing nearly $145 million in resources to support safety net hospitals, and allow NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H) and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) to increase staffing and fight the Omicron surge. The City has added $33 million to the COVID-19 Hospital Loan Fund, for a total of $45 million, through a public-private partnership with Goldman Sachs that is accessible to safety net hospitals, the not-for-profit facilities that typically serve the most vulnerable New Yorkers and fall outside the H+H system. The administration is also directing $111 million towards expanding DOHMH and H+H staffing needs, as part of the administration’s COVID-19 response master plan.

“This is 2022, not 2020, and New Yorkers should be confident that we are stepping up the fight against the Omicron surge to keep them safe,” said Mayor Eric Adams. “This plan will ensure our frontline healthcare heroes have the resources they need to address staffing shortages, and continue providing top-quality care to every person who walks through their doors.”

“New Yorkers deserve world class health care no matter where they go for treatment. This loan program and additional funding for our City agencies will give hospitals across the five boroughs the resources they desperately need, better staff our City’s healthcare facilities, and ultimately save lives,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom. “We must support our City’s critical healthcare partners, especially those non-profit hospitals serving communities of color that have been suffering from decades of healthcare disparities. I am proud of the Adams Administration for taking bold action in our very first week to fight the Omicron variant and thank Mayor Adams for his leadership.”

“The additional COVID-19 funding secured by Mayor Adams will help us further secure necessary staff that will not only help care for New Yorkers during our Omicron surge, but also provide relief to our healthcare heroes who have been on the frontline of this pandemic for nearly two years,” said NYC Health + Hospitals President and CEO Mitchell Katz, MD. “Our public health system’s extraordinary COVID-19 response would not have been possible without the continued support and advocacy of our city-wide leaders and partners.”

“As cases and hospitalizations rise, we must do all we can to shore up our hospitals and COVID-19 response now,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Dave A Chokshi. “I thank Mayor Adams for his leadership and ongoing commitment to public health.”

“We are proud to continue to support they City’s efforts in combatting COVID-19, setting us up for a stronger recovery. This loan program is one more way we can make sure New York City’s public health apparatus remains strong through this challenging time,” said Rachel Loeb, President and CEO, NYCEDC.

“The NYC COVID-19 Hospital Loan Fund was one of our first investments as part of our One Million Black Women initiative, a $10 billion commitment to narrow opportunity gaps for Black women over the next decade,” said Margaret Anadu, Global Head of Sustainability and Impact for Goldman Sachs Asset Management. “We are proud to double down on this effort alongside Mayor Adams as COVID-19 continues to have a disproportionate impact on many of the Black communities served by these safety net hospitals. The Fund’s holistic approach will not only provide the resources to hospitals to hire additional healthcare professionals but will also support those essential workers with funding for desperately needed child care.”

“We appreciate Mayor Adam’s recognition that we are in this fight together, and that addressing the surge in every NYC neighborhood requires financial support for all of the safety net hospitals”, said LaRay Brown, CEO of One Brooklyn Health.

New York City’s public health and safety-net hospitals are in crisis. Nurses and healthcare professionals have been overworked and understaffed for nearly two years on the frontlines. Today’s announcement of additional funding is critical to supporting our healthcare workers and delivering the care that all our patients need. We applaud Mayor Adams for securing this critical funding to invest in the City’s staffing needs, support the current healthcare workforce, and support hospitals to safely provide care to all communities in NYC,” said NYSNA Executive Director Pat Kane, RN.

The City-negotiated COVID-19 Hospital Loan Fund provides loans to safety net hospitals needs by covering pandemic response costs while hospitals apply for FEMA reimbursements and has already funded over 2,400 safety net hospital staff members serving over 26,000 patients. The Fund was established by and will be operated by NYCEDC.

Resources totaling $111 million for DOHMH and H+H will ease staffing needs to increase temporary staff, including nursing, providers, and other clinical teams. This will ease staffing needs across the health system, specifically within the ICUs, med-surg units, emergency rooms, and skilled-nursing facilities. ​​

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On November 14, 2021, leading policy advocates, artists, and researchers from cultural organizations, healthcare centers, government, and the United Nations will convene at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in a call to action to acknowledge and act on the evidence base for the health benefits of the arts.

The day-long Healing Arts Symposium, presented in partnership with the World Health Organization, and produced by CULTURUNNERS in partnership with the Creative Arts Therapies Consortium at NYU Steinhardt, the NeuroArts Blueprint, an initiative of the International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the Health, Medicine, and Society Program at The Aspen Institute, and the Open Mind Project positions the arts as necessary to physical, mental, and social health across the lifespan. The event will be live streamed.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, commented about the symposium, “We are particularly pleased that Museums like The Met are rethinking their missions to see themselves not simply as repositories of valuable objects, but as centres of creative engagement with their communities in the pursuit of promoting the wellbeing, and health, of the public.”

The event will be centered around three themed panels exploring the intersection of research, cultural practice, and global policy in the arts and health. Opening remarks by Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, and Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Direct-General, will frame the panels which are being hosted by Heidi Holder, The Met’s newly appointed Frederick P. and Sandra P. Rose Chair of Education; Nisha Sajnani, Founding Director of Arts & Health @ NYU; and Susan Magsamen, Executive Director of the International Arts + Mind Lab. Participating artists include soprano and arts and health advocate Renée Fleming; American singer, actress, and founding member of Black Theatre United, Vanessa Williams; and Syrian-American artist and architect Mohamad Hafez. Also participating are Aduke Gomez, Chairperson for Art4Health in the Ministry for Health in Lagos, Nigeria; Patrick J. Kennedy, former congressman and mental health advocate; Sunil Iyengar, Director of the Office of Research & Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA); and Emmeline Edwards, Director of the Division of Extramural Research of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH).

Christopher Bailey, Arts & Health Lead, World Health Organization, comments, “With a growing body of evidence that embedding the arts into systems and places of healing can improve health outcomes, lower costs and support recovery from illness and injury, now is the time for a ‘healing arts revolution’ that improves the wellbeing of millions of people worldwide.”

The program will shine a special light on arts and health interventions on the ground, and highlight projects on the “frontline” of the pandemic where the crisis has exacerbated pre-existing threats to the environment, equity and access, economy, public health, political stability, and human rights.

The Healing Arts Symposium marks the culmination of Healing Arts New York, the last of a series of 2021 city activations, produced by CULTURUNNERS, to convene global arts and health researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. As the world emerges from the greatest health crisis in a generation, Healing Arts aims to affirm what artists have always known and research is now proving—that the arts can heal.

This program is made possible, in part, by donors to The Met’s Education Department in honor of the Museum’s 150th anniversary.

These events will be produced in accordance with institutional and City COVID-19 protocols to ensure the health and safety of presenters.

For the full Healing Arts New York program, visit our website.

Media contacts:

WHO: Christopher Bailey: baileych@who.int
CULTURUNNERS: Stephen Stapleton: stephen@culturunners.com
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Egle Zygas: egle.zygas@metmuseum.org