A call is being made to create a compensation fund for essential workers who have risked their health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

After Sept. 11, 2001, Congress created a 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund. Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he now wants the same for essential workers.

"I've been working with our congressional delegation, we think the federal government should set up a heroes compensation fund, to compensate our health care and other front-line workers for what they did here," says Cuomo.

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News 12 spoke to Mount Sinai Chief Medical Officer Dr. Adhi Sharma, who says we're still in the early stages of learning about the coronavirus, but he does believe many who contract the virus and survive may never fully recover.

Sharma says some patients who go as far as needing to be put on a ventilator may have to live with permanent injuries.

"There is damage to the lungs during this process and although they recover, they probably do not recover their full functionality," says Sharma.

Sharma says hospital workers on Long Island and across the nation are getting infected just by doing their jobs. He fully supports the proposed compensation fund.

"We've had plenty of staff get infected, sadly we've lost two staff members to COVID already," he says. "It would be appropriate for them to be able to compensate those families in some way or those who were injured in some way for stepping up at the moment when the nation needed us to do the right thing."