Hospitals can be tricky and intimidating to navigate. That's where Hala Abdullah comes in at NYU Langone Health.

Abdullah is a volunteer with the hospital’s “I’ll Walk With You” initiative.

“It’s a big, big facility. It’s not just a hospital: it’s clinics, it’s [an] emergency department,” Abdullah said. “You get lost really easily, and you need someone to walk you.”

Abdullah has been on the job for eight months. She has been with the program since it began. The Sunnyside resident says the work goes hand-in-hand with her dreams to be a pediatrician.

“I wanted something to do to empower myself more in medicine and see how the patient care, the health care system actually works outside the doctor’s office,” she said.

That drive intensified during the COVID lockdown.

“I felt useless and in a way where I was just trapped at home. I couldn’t do anything,” Abdullah said. “It just made sense for me to be out there and start helping others.”

Now, Abdullah helps people find their way to their appointments a few times a month. She keeps them comfortable as they head into what could sometimes be scary conversations.

“The stress that they have is relieved in a kind of way when we’re talking,” she said.

When Abdullah isn’t assisting as a lobby service volunteer, she’s a friend to patients in the Emergency Department both at NYU Langone Health and at Mount Sinai.

“They don’t have time to call family members,” Abdullah said. “They’re escorted by ambulances. So their life is chaotic at that moment.”

She helps people stay calm and collected as they go to the hospital.

“Human connection is one of the most important parts and that’s what makes me become a volunteer here," she said.

For taking care of hospital patients so they can take care of themselves, Hala Abdullah is our New Yorker of the Week.