United States: Many health care places in Florida are getting ready to stop services or evacuate because Hurricane Milton is coming.
On Sunday, Pinellas County, which is near the coast and includes cities like Clearwater and St. Petersburg, told long-term care homes, assisted living places, and hospitals that they must evacuate from certain areas.
The order covers six hospitals, 25 nursing homes, and 44 assisted living facilities and about 6,600 patients according to the issued order.
As reported by Yahoo News, Pinellas County is in the potential path of the storm and could experience life threatening storm surge, isolated flooding, and hurricane force winds, depending on where the storm makes land fall on Wednesday as the order stated. Of course, many coastal regions are still struggling to fully recover from Hurricane Helene.”
There were also other signs of preparations this week: Morton Plant North Bay Hospital in New Port Richey north of Pinellas County has begun its evacuation regimen Monday morning and no longer admitted new patients, based on a statement from the hospital’s parent company BayCare.
Other BayCare hospitals are now open, according to BayCare; but as of this Monday afternoon, elective surgeries for non-urgent procedures will be suspended for Wednesday, October 9th and any decision on Thursday, October 11th surgery plans have not yet been determined.
All BayCare ambulatory surgery centers, imaging centers, laboratories, urgent care facilities and behavioral health outpatient sites will also be shut down Wednesday and Thursday, the BayCare statement added.
Also, the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine affiliated the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital in Tampa said the hospital as well as its outpatient clinics will be shut for in-person appointments and elective surgeries from October 8 to 10 citing the predicted effects of Hurricane Milton.
A tropical weather alert was posted by University of Florida Health (UF Health) on Monday afternoon stating that major UF Health hospitals, outpatient clinical facilities and physician practices are still operational although some have had closures. Archer, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Leesburg, Naples, St. Augustine, St. Petersburg, and The Villages facilities were closed or restricted operation before the storm reached Milton.
HCA Florida Healthcare informed ABC News on Monday that it was pooling efforts to evacuate patients from hospitals most vulnerable to being in the path of Milton.