New York: Leading E.R doctor who treated COVID-19 patients commits suicide

A top emergency room doctor from New York who treated coronavirus patientshas killed herself.

The death of the doctor, named LornaBreen, is being linkedto the traumafaced by health care workers battling the outbreak.

The 49-year-old wasthemedicaldirector ofNewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital's emergency department.

She died on Sunday from self-inflicted injuries in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she had been staying with her family, police said in a statement.

According to her father, Dr. Philip Breen, she had no history of mental illness.

He said that hergruelling work was ''overwhelming'' and took a ''toll on her mental health'' after she contracted the deadly coronavirus from a patient that she was treating.

"She gave what she had, and she’s a casualty of the war in the trenchesas far as I’m concerned,''he said.

However, she went back to work after approximately 10 days because she felt ''guilty about not being at work'', her father added.

"Frontline healthcare professionals and first responders are not immune to the mental or physical effects of the current pandemic," said Charlottesville police chief RaShall Brackney.

The president of the American College of Emergency Physicians, of which Breen was a member, said her death was a tragic reminder of the suffering that many health care workers are going through.

The hospital where she worked described her as "a hero who brought the highest ideals of medicine to the challenging front lines of the emergency department."

More than 17,300 people have died from COVID-19 across New York state, the epicenter of America's outbreak.