VA medical facilities struggle to cope with the coronavirus

MICHAEL CASEY and HOPE YEN

Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — As she treated patient after patient infected with the coronavirus at a Veterans Affairs medical center in New York City, Heather Espinal saw stark warning signs.

So many nurses had called in sick, she said, that the Bronx facility was woefully understaffed. It lacked specially equipped rooms for infected patients, she said, and didn't have enough masks, gloves and other protective gear to guard against the spread of the highly contagious disease.

Espinal, a member of the union National Nurses United, says she and her colleagues were to...