[The New York Times] PANAMA CITY, Fla. — Bay Medical Center, a 300-bed hospital in the center of town, was a tumultuous mess. Staff members were frantically working on Thursday to evacuate patients just as new ones showed up at the door.
Hurricane Michael had strafed the place, blowing out windows and stripping some of the buildings in the sprawling complex down to their metal girders. Signage was strewn in the streets. Doctors, nurses and workers wandered outside, some crying, some looking for cell service.
The governor had announced that all of the patients in the hospital were to be evacuated, which was expected to take 48 hours. And other residents of the ravaged city were still showing up asking for medical care only to be turned away. A man named Wain Hall, 23, was standing with his bicycle, screaming at a security guard by the boarded-up entrance to the emergency room.
“I got a busted head, and so you refuse me medical attention here?” he said.
He lifted his ball cap to reveal matted, blood-soaked hair. “I have lost everything and everyone keeps turning us away,” he said.
Continue reading at The New York Times.
How hospitals can be safe havens in the storm
In the wake of hurricanes and wildfires in 2018, health care leaders can safeguard lives and their organization's financial viability by investing in climate resilience. Safe haven in the storm: Protecting lives and margins with climate-smart health care, a report published by Health Care Without Harm and PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services LLC., analyzes billions of dollars in losses and resilience-related savings to demonstrate how preparing for extreme weather can make or break a health system. Read the report and use the customizable slide presentation to inspire your clinical, administrative, and facility leadership to read the Safe Haven report and implement climate-smart actions.
The Report
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The slide deck
