Coronavirus : Doctor commits suicide in New York

A top health official of New York doctor has taken her own life after hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak.

Dr Lorna Breen, who was medical director of the emergency department at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in Manhattan, died of self-inflicted injuries on Sunday, police said.

Her father Dr Philip Breen said, "She tried to do her job and it killed her," reports BBC.

"My daughter got infected with coronavirus during her duty. Afterward she was in quarantine and fully recuperated for a week and a half at our home in Virginia. But the hospital forbade her from joining." he added.

He said that when they last spoke, his daughter had seemed "detached" and told him how Covid-19 patients were dying before they could even be removed from ambulances. Dozens of patients have succumbed to coronavirus at the 200-bed hospital in Manhattan.

"She was truly in the trenches on the front line. Make sure she's praised as a hero. She's a casualty just as much as anyone else who has died," her father told The Times.

According to the newspaper, Dr Lorna Breen was a devout Christian who was very close to her family. She was an avid skier who also enjoyed salsa dancing. She volunteered once a week at a home for old people.

New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital said in a statement, "Dr Breen is a hero who brought the highest ideals of medicine to the challenging front lines of the emergency department."

In a press release confirming her death, the Charlottesville Police Department also described Dr Breen as a "hero".

The police department said that after a call for help on 26 April, Dr Breen was taken to a local hospital for treatment "where she later succumbed to self-inflicted injuries".

New York state has recorded almost a third of the country's nearly one million confirmed Covid-19 cases.