| Magazine Feature |

Tablet to Tablet

By Sandy Eller | August 5, 2020

For patients alone in Covid-19 wards, the tech connection is the next best thing to being face to face

Photos: Naftoli Goldgrab

For patients alone in Covid-19 wards, the tech connection is the next best thing to being face to face

Many of us can remember exactly what were and what we were doing when coronavirus became our new reality and life as we knew it was blown out of the water. For Williamsburg resident Yoely Friedman, he knew the pandemic was upon us when he saw sales quadrupling in his online electronics business as people scrambled to set up home offices.

The Satmar chassid and a father of six who has been in the electronics business for 12 years wasn’t overly concerned about Covid-19 at first, thinking of it as an issue that was mostly confined to China. And even when his own grandmother was hospitalized with the virus, she had been treated and was back home within three days. But all that changed when the number of Covid-19 fatalities within New York City’s Jewish community had grown so large that a list bearing the victims’ names had been created in order to keep track of the dead.

Things struck closer to home when Yoely’s aunt, a mother of 12 in her early fifties, was hospitalized with the virus. Yoely was frantic with worry, while the rest of the family thought he was overreacting.

“They kept saying it wasn’t Covid-19, that she just needed some oxygen, but in the end, she didn’t make it,” says Yoely sadly.

The bad news kept coming as the death toll spiraled to shocking levels. With hospitals on lockdown and staff overwhelmed, families could do little but hold vigils next to the phone, waiting hours for sporadic updates on their loved ones, while isolated patients’ only human contact came in the form of brief visits from overloaded doctors and nurses, most of whom were afraid of prolonged contact. It soon became clear that without contact or family support, and with no one to advocate for them, many patients were losing the will to persevere.

“There was no one to reassure them and convince them they were getting better, and weeks on end of loneliness led to further deterioration and proved to be detrimental to their health and wellbeing,” explains Yoely.

And so, thinking about what he could contribute to help alleviate the tragic new reality, Yoely turned to what he knew best — technology. He rejected a few initial ideas, such as a pulse-oximeter based cellular phone technology, and soon settled on trying to implement a tablet-based system that would allow unlimited video chats between patients and their families. Many medical centers has already closed their chesed rooms and banned outside food, so he knew that setting up a system of user-friendly tablets was going to be a tough sell.

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Comments (1)

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Ahava Ehrenpreis
5 years ago
Reply

Dear Mishpacha mishpachah,
Thank you for featuring Yoely Friedman’s WellTab initiative, a most amazing organization. The reference to “a special needs patient who spent his last months in the hospital” is, in fact, Mishpacha’s very own Saadya Ehrenpreis a”h. His “appreciative family” is the Ehrenpreis family.
In April, I received a call from a reader after Mishpacha published my “Dear Saadya” letter detailing Saadya’s dire medical situation and the fact that I could not see him in person. She gave me the number of a group that links families and patients through tablets. When I called, no one asked my religious affiliation or mentioned a cost — instead they offered to immediately come to our home to set it up. A gentleman arrived and within a few minutes connected a tablet to our Internet, and gave me a companion screen to bring to the hospital for the patient.
I told him the hospital was not letting us go up to Saadya’s room. He took the tablet, asked me the location of the hospital and Saadya’s room number — and less than an hour later, I heard my screen crackle and there before my eyes was Saadya smiling, despite the tubes and wires, with a nurse in full PPE garb patting his arm, with a reassuring smile for me as well.
For the next four hours we “visited.” Saadya couldn’t speak, due to a tracheostomy, but with great effort, he raised his hand, responding with gestures. His sister “walked him” around our home and up to his room, showing him that everything was the same, awaiting his return. We then took the tablet to our front door, and our neighbors and his friends came to the door to wave to Saadya and assure him that we were all waiting for him.
I video-called the counselor at his apartment and by holding my phone to the tablet’s screen, Saadya was able to see and “speak” to his apartment-mates. There too, his counselor walked around his apartment to show him that all was just as he had left it. After four hours, he was exhausted and we turned off the screens.
The next day, Saadya underwent a procedure that would enable him to be discharged to rehab, to begin his recovery and return to us. When it finished, the doctor called me that Saadya was doing well, comfortable, and back in his room. I asked them to turn on the tablet so I could speak to him. While I waited, in the interim few minutes, he suffered a fatal coronary thrombosis from which he could not be resuscitated.
That tablet “visit” on the previous day was our farewell to Saadya a”h. The chesed of the WellTab staff became true chesed shel emes. Our family will never be able to adequately thank them.
I must add yet another Hashgacha pratis element. To personally express my hakaras hatov, I found the number of the person who had installed the tablet in my house and then insisted on going to the hospital to make sure that the connection was set up there. After we spoke, he called back and asked, “Do you write for a magazine? I told my wife about your call and she said, ‘I know who that young man is, I’ve been following his story for years and davening for him.’ She wants to say Hamakom Yenachem to you.”
Yes, this is a Mishpacha story…in every sense of the word.
Mi Kamcha Yisrael?