New York Doctor Breaks Coronavirus Pandemic Rules, Allows Son and Daughter to Say Goodbye to Dying Mother

Dr. Ronald Simon who is Chief of Trauma at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, is one of thousands of medical professionals on the font lines amid the coronavirus pandemic, but what Simon did for one little girl and boy is what keeps him going back to work. The rules surrounding family members visiting loved ones in hospitals has become a lot more strict since the coronavirus outbreak, but Simon broke the rules a bit to let one daughter and son say goodbye to their mother in her final moments.

In a touching Facebook post, Simon wrote that allowing family members to say their final goodbyes has helped him "heal and go back to work day after day in this crisis." Despite the strict rules, he said he believes that his actions "left the family with a little more sense of peace." Not only did he try and give the family a sense of peace in her final moments, but another reason he decided to bend the rules a bit is because he said he's afraid of dying alone and doesn't want others to be by themselves in such a heartbreaking time. "For me, dying alone is more frightening than dying itself. Why? Who knows!" he wrote according to the Daily Mail. "A middle aged woman is dying from a very severe COVID pneumonia. All of our efforts are keeping her alive but barely and we knew that she could pass at any time."

Simon isn't the only one willing to break the rules. A New York man who had been exposed to the coronavirus hid his symptoms so that he could visit his wife in the maternity unit of an upstate New York hospital. It came to light after the woman started experiencing coronavirus symptoms which prompted him to admit that he had been feeling ill at the time of his visit.

"The patient in question and her partner were in a private maternity room throughout their hospital stay," University of Rochester Medical Center officials said in a statement on Tuesday. "Both the mother and partner were isolated from other patients. After the mother exhibited symptoms, and the OB team learned that the partner had been exposed to COVID-19 and was symptomatic, the patient was tested and all staff who had been in contact were informed of their possible exposure." It was reported that all staff members who came into contact with the man immediately self-quarantined and later tested negative.