It was lone aft the hurricane had pounded the facilities for respective hours that unit moved astatine slightest 640 patients from 5 hospitals successful Charlotte, Sarasota and Lee counties. In 1 instance, infirmary unit had to hold transferring patients for hours due to the fact that it was excessively unsafe to determination anyone extracurricular the infirmary arsenic the tempest raged. In different cases, unit evacuated patients days aboriginal due to the fact that facilities couldn’t get h2o owed to damaged infrastructure.
“My anticipation and anticipation is that erstwhile you’re asked to evacuate, you evacuate,” Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said successful an interview. “When radical were, I usage the term, successful fearfulness for their life, those things could person been avoided 36 hours earlier.”
No authorities successful America is much prone to hurricanes than Florida, and however hospitals, archetypal responders and different captious exigency services grip cataclysmic upwind events tin mean the quality betwixt beingness oregon death.
While Ian was 1 of the state’s deadliest storms — and galore radical are inactive rebuilding aft it struck — the imaginable for much hurricanes is an inevitability. That could enactment unit connected authorities leaders, including Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, to unit hospitals to reconsider their evacuation procedures and enactment much rapidly erstwhile the adjacent large tempest approaches.
No infirmary patients oregon unit were wounded oregon killed during Ian oregon the consequent evacuations, and experts constituent to galore factors that would pb a infirmary to hold moving patients. That includes jeopardizing the attraction of medically-fragile patients, whose wellness could beryllium further damaged by being transported.
But Joseph Barbera, a George Washington University prof and adept connected infirmary exigency management, said the facilities that evacuated patients successful the aftermath of Hurricane Ian should see themselves lucky.
Barbera was connected the crushed successful New Orleans aft Hurricane Katrina caused monolithic flooding astatine the Memorial Medical Center nursing location successful 2005. The aging installation was near without energy oregon aerial conditioning aft its exigency generator died with 2,500 patients inside. Forty-five radical astatine the New Orleans installation died.
“If you judge you tin shelter-in-place, past you besides person to person a tenable mode to evacuate if that shelter-in-place fails,” said Barbera, who testified arsenic a witnesser successful lawsuits associated with the New Orleans hospital. “That was each wholly ignored successful Katrina successful New Orleans — they intelligibly expected the feds and the authorities to screen their problem, and they didn’t enactment until it was excessively late.”
DeSantis has oversight of infirmary exigency preparedness done the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. When asked astir immoderate enforcement enactment successful effect to post-landfall evacuations, spokesperson Brock Juarez said the bureau does not remark connected imaginable oregon ongoing investigations.
Waiting retired the storm
Hurricane Ian began forming successful the Atlantic successful mid-September and gradually gained spot arsenic it moved northbound disconnected the eastbound seashore of South America. DeSantis declared a authorities of exigency days earlier the tempest reached Florida. Schools crossed the authorities closed, hotels began turning radical distant and 3 airports suspended operations successful mentation for the storm. By the clip Ian passed implicit Cuba, it was a fully-formed hurricane with upwind speeds of astir 120 mph.
More than a time earlier the tempest made landfall connected Florida’s southwest seashore connected Sept. 28, authorities officials began informing radical to statesman evacuating radical from areas successful the storm’s path. That included the counties of Lee, Charlotte and Sarasota.
But 5 hospitals successful those counties chose to hold retired the storm: HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital, HCA Florida Englewood Hospital, Gulf Coast Medical Center, HealthPark Medical Center and Golisano Children’s Hospital.
Each of the facilities is wrong 2 miles of the coast, and they were successful zones for which section officials had issued evacuation orders much than 24 hours earlier Ian made landfall, region and authorities records show.
The time earlier the tempest came ashore, officials astatine Fawcett Hospital successful Charlotte County called the authorities Emergency Operations Center successful Tallahassee for assistance transporting 4 critically-ill patients connected ventilators. An ambulance work moved 3 of the patients, but Fawcett staffers decided to support the 4th diligent alternatively than effort to determination them, according to reports obtained from the authorities Division of Emergency Management. Records provided by the state’s Division of Emergency Management don’t specify wherefore the 4th diligent was not moved.
Hurricane Ian made landfall successful Florida’s southwest seashore astatine 3:05 p.m. with 150 mph winds. The devastation that followed was immense.
Fawcett Hospital suffered the astir damage. The hurricane winds were truthful beardown that it tore a spread successful the 238-bed facility’s roof, allowing dense rains to determination into stairwells and passim its 3rd and 4th roofs. The floors of the intensive attraction portion were covered successful water, according to videos posted to societal media.
About 5 hours aft the tempest made landfall, infirmary officials called the authorities to assistance evacuate patients, according to records, but by that point, it was excessively dangerous. Rescuers had to hold for six hours earlier they could statesman moving astir 200 patients from the hospital.
Other hospitals that remained unfastened fared somewhat better.
HCA Florida Englewood Hospital successful Sarasota County suffered from h2o unit issues and moved 48 patients 1 time aft the tempest made landfall. Two different hospitals, Gulf Coast and HealthPark aesculapian centers, transferred a full of 295 patients portion 91 patients were evacuated from Golisano Children’s Hospital.
The facilities, each successful hard-hit Lee County, moved the patients 2 days aft the hurricane struck the country — 1 of the facilities mislaid capable h2o pressure, and infirmary leaders determined that immoderate repairs to the county’s badly-damaged h2o lines would instrumentality excessively agelong for critically sick patients.
“Our structures fared well, and they’re successful bully shape, but our infrastructure — chiefly our h2o and energy — was challenged,” Lee Health President and CEO Larry Antonucci said connected the time aft the storm. “We cannot tally a wellness attraction installation without moving water.” Lee Health represents the Gulf Coast, Health Park and Golisano facilities.
‘Incredibly disruptive’
Florida Hospital Association President and CEO Mary Mayhew defended the hospitals’ determination to effort to hold retired the storm, saying moving patients poses risks and galore facilities person hardened buildings to amended withstand storms.
“It is incredibly disruptive to evacuate patients,” Mayhew said. “It takes a agelong clip to bash an evacuation, and past you get into that model of clip wherever aerial and crushed transport are nary longer available.”
Debra Burbridge, a spokesperson for Nashville-based HCA Healthcare, which owns Fawcett infirmary and Englewood hospital, said Ian’s predicted way implicit Florida had changed importantly successful the days starring up to landfall, leaving the infirmary with little than 24 hours to statesman the analyzable process of transferring patients without diminishing a continuous level of care. Like Fawcett, Englewood moved immoderate of the astir captious patients conscionable earlier the tempest made landfall, but the bulk were moved a time later.
“Wind conditions up of the tempest prevented the harmless transportation of further patients,” Burbridge wrote successful a statement. “Patient transfers, which necessitate the receiving infirmary to supply the due level of care, are cautiously planned and coordinated.”
Burbridge besides said Fawcett, Englewood and different HCA Florida hospitals each person agelong histories of staying unfastened during hurricanes to proceed to service the community.
Federal wellness regulators tightened exigency preparedness guidelines for hospitals successful the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The guidelines necessitate hospitals to execute hazard assessments of each threats, including earthy disasters, make an exigency communications program and execute regular investigating and training.
The guidelines are intertwined with authorities law, which requires that hospitals support what’s known arsenic a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan. The program indispensable beryllium approved by a section exigency absorption authoritative and reviewed by the Florida AHCA annually. Hospital unit indispensable besides transportation retired the exigency absorption plans erstwhile a twelvemonth during a simulated disaster.
“You can’t conscionable aftermath up contiguous and evacuate,” George Washington University’s Barbera said. “How are you going to rapidly find the placements for patients, and the staffing?”
Guthrie estimated that 90 percent of hospitals facing a menace from a hurricane volition evacuate patients to higher floors of the infirmary alternatively than to different installation extracurricular the area. But, helium said, underground infrastructure specified arsenic h2o pipes tin beryllium damaged during hurricanes, leaving those facilities successful dire request of help. Hurricane Ian, for example, severely damaged a h2o main successful Lee County, leaving astir 800,000 radical determination without water.
“What happened with Fawcett, and with a mates of different hospitals, is they decided they were going to enactment connected the river, connected the coast, successful a precocious interaction area, and vertically evacuate their patients,” Guthrie said. “When each of the infrastructure is connected the ground.”
English (US)