Hospitals scramble to evacuate patients.
Ben Taub among facilities forced to move patients
The story on Monday for Houston’s massive medical infrastructure became one of frantic logistics as the rains continued to fall and hospital leaders scrambled to stay one step ahead of the rising waters.
At least a dozen hospitals across the region began the painstaking work of evacuation, methodically emptying floor after floor of patients, the sickest ones first, who were then shuffled into ambulances and taken to sister hospitals in the hope of higher ground.
“This is a phenomenal catastrophe impacting community hospitals, large and small,” said Darrell Pile, chief executive of the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council, whose catastrophic medical operations center is coordinating the response to hospital crises.
“The number of people that may require care may
exceed anything we’ve ever dealt with in the past.”
As night began to fall, the steady stream of ambulances arrived at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston’s storied Texas Medical Center to begin removing the first six of 60 patients hospital leaders had deemed most critical.
The evacuation came roughly 36 hours after flooding and a burst pipe in the basement could have put those inside the hospital at risk. Power was never lost.
Word began to spread Sunday afternoon that the city’s largest public hospital might need to send its patients elsewhere. By that night, Ben Taub scaled down its original request for all 350 patients to be evacuated.
The hospital attempted a late-night transport of one pediatric patient but the ambulance was turned back because hard rain raised water levels around the facility to dangerous levels.
By Monday afternoon, the region’s Catastrophic Medical Operations Center notified Ben Taub that it had found hospital beds in other cities — some in Conroe or Clear Lake, but others as far away as Lufkin and Livingston in East Texas — for each of the 60 patients. Officials had 48 hours.
Adding to the urgency, Ben Taub was scheduled to run out of food Tuesday night.
At the same time, hospital officials in Sugar Land were sorting their own crises.
“This is not an easy decision,” said Greg Haralson, CEO of Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital, as he oversaw the evacuation of his hospital not far from the swollen Brazos River.
Haralson had been in near-constant communication with Memorial Hermann Health System officials and regional emergency coordinators for the past 36 hours. He arrived for work at 7 a.m. Friday and had not been home since.
The Brazos was at 11 feet a few days ago. By Monday it was at 47½ feet and expected to crest at 59, shattering previous records.
“And it’s raining,” the weary-sounding executive said midafternoon.
‘Looked like refugees’
While hospitals drill for such things, it is different when it is real. Seventy patients, along with their families, were informed as gently as possible that they would have to be moved and the hospital closed. Some left on stretchers, others in wheelchairs.
All were loaded into the squadron of ambulances waiting by the emergency room door, sheltered from the downpour and wind, for the 16-mile trek to Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital.
As the day wore on two more Houston institutions, Sugar Land Hospital and The Vintage Hospital, both part of the CHI St. Luke’s network, began the delicate process of removing patients as the weather worsened and many surrounding neighborhoods got the call for mandatory evacuation.
Fifty patients were part of those evacuations.
Meanwhile in League City, giant camouflaged National Guard trucks continued to rumble up to the University of Texas Medical Branch, delivering patients who had to be rescued from the storm’s wrath.
By Monday the number of emergency patients had climbed to two dozen. They included women in labor and others who had been trapped in attics, suffering from exposure. Some had broken bones or were covered with red ant bites after wading through water. A growing problem were the patients in need of dialysis as dialysis centers across the city have been shut down.
“They looked like refugees,” said a clearly shaken Christine Wade, interim vice president of health system operations at the UTMB location. “They’re wet. They’re scared. They have nothing. It’s heartbreaking.”
Not far away, Bayshore Medical Center, in Pasadena, which had previously announced it was shutting down and evacuating all patients, said that a slight break in the storm’s trajectory Monday allowed them to scale back such plans. Only those with the most critical needs were being moved.
The hospital cautioned it was not taking new patients until the power supply is fully stabilized and structural damage is repaired, hospital officials announced in a statement.
Helicopter transport
Other hospitals that have announced suspending services or evacuating patients since the start of the storm include East Houston Regional Medical Center, Memorial Hermann Colony First, Memorial Hermann Orthopedic & Spine Hospital, HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital The Vintage. Dozens of urgent care clinics and 24-hour emergency centers have also closed.
While the streets around the Texas Medical Center were strangely quiet on Monday, the airways above were busy.
William McKeon, president of the Texas Medical Center, counted about 20 trips by helicopters, both LifeFlight and Coast Guard, transporting patients to the medical center.
It is not known when any of the shuttered medical facilities will reopen.
Harralson was trying to be optimistic as his Sugar Land evacuation was winding down.
“I think we will all bounce back,” he said. “In Houston there is always a sense of resilience.”