New York City doctor, delayed his retirement to help our city fight the coronavirus pandemic, has now passed away from the virus.
James Mahoney, 62, was given an option to retire after working as a physician for 40 years. He had been working in the intensive care unit at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center caring for patients through the HIV/AIDS epidemic, through 9/11, through the swine flu and now he felt like it was finally time to step back and retire. However when the virus hit, he chose to continue working, treating patients, and working his shifts at the University Hospital of Brooklyn in their ICUt. He was also working night shifts at Kings County Hospital Center.
The second week of April, he told his boss he had a fever, so continued to treat patients via telemedicine. On April 20th he was admitted to the hospital, barely walking. He died April 27th.
“There are two hospitals crying. Nonstop,” Melvin Mahoney, James Brother said of the two hospitals where his brother worked. “I’ve heard men crying like you wouldn’t believe. That’s how much they loved my brother." In an interview with the Times, Dr. Latif Salam called him “our Jay-Z.”
Mahoney is survived by three children, four siblings, his father and a longtime girlfriend, a nurse.
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Photo: SUNY Downstate