Hospital staffer volunteered on his off-time amid pandemic

Roman Khait is a patient representative at Mount Sinai Brooklyn whose main job is to advocate for patients, communicate with their families and make sure all of their needs are met. 

And even when he wasn’t putting in 12 hours a day, five days a week, Khait was volunteering on his off-hours and during the weekend to make sure every family call was returned. 

“When you hear the voices of families of patients, they’re almost crying,” Khait, 44, recalled of his work at the height of the coronavirus pandemic’s crush on Big Apple hospitals. 

“If a person was saying ‘I want to see my loved one before something final will happen with them, before they go away but I can’t do it now, can you stay over?’ Yeah, sure. I can. And if they want to pick up the belongings and they can’t pick it up during the day, only in the evening then, I mean, I can’t tell them sorry, right? I have to stay and to help out.” 

Khait is the only patient representative for the 212-bed Coney Island hospital and at the peak of the pandemic, they stretched their capacity to 230-240 beds.

“It’s a nonstop movement from the moment I arrive to the hospital until the moment I leave. In fact, I know that it’s time for me to go home when I don’t get calls for more than 10 minutes. That’s how I know that things are quieting down,” Khait said. 

“It was so overwhelming at certain points that I don’t think our hospital was able to accommodate all the people who come in and we began transferring some of them to Javits Center, to Samaritan’s Purse, to [USNS] Comfort,” Khait said of the field hospitals created to handle the surge. 

But things were moving so quickly, families didn’t always immediately know when someone was transferred, so it was Khait’s job to make sure that message was relayed, he said. 

“On weekends, I was calling the families of . . . patients, warning them about the transfer, giving them the phone number where to call to get more information,” Khait said. 

“It was very overwhelming and I wasn’t sure that everybody was informed. Half of the time they would already know about the transfers, but you know, just make sure that everybody is aware of transfers.”

Khait also had the tedious job of handling the belongings of patients. He often found himself running from floor to floor of the hospital, trying to track down eyeglasses or trousers for a family member desperate for their loved one’s remaining relics. 

“At times I had to skip lunch for like, two days, just eat breakfast, and then the next meal is like 8:30 p.m. because there was not enough time in the day,” Khait said. 

“Sometimes it takes a lot of emotional toll. So basically when I come home, I just eat and go to bed because some days you hear a lot of emotional calls about let’s say expirations. And I mean, it is mentally, emotionally tough, you know. I understand when it’s one or two per day, but this pandemic has taken a lot of lives.” 

“But you work through it,” Khait continued. 

“It’s tough, but you know that everybody else is going through tough times.” 

Despite the grueling work, when Khait gets home, he feels accomplished. Missives from family members thanking him for his time are the fuel that keeps him going. 

“When I come home from work, I feel that I really worked a lot and did a lot of good, you know. Some people believe that working is laying bricks and maybe doing a lot of physical stuff but I actually feel very physically and emotionally drained every time I come home,” Khait said. 

“So I feel like I did my job well and I helped a lot of people and their positive responses is proof that, you know, I am in the right place.” 

Do you have a nominee for The Post’s Hero of the Day? E-mail heroes@nypost.com.