Bellevue Hospital worked to evacuate all its patients because of continuing storm damage Wednesday, and it may take two to three weeks to get the facility up and running again, according to the president of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.
Hundreds of patients were being taken to hospitals all over the city, HHC President Alan Aviles said at a briefing. Officials say they hope to have all the patients moved by noon Thursday.
Bellevue lost power during Monday night’s storm and had been operating on backup generators since then.
Even with backup power, the outage left many hallways and rooms dark and knocked out key medical equipment.
Bellevue has been diverting some patients since the initial outage.
On Wednesday, Aviles said, it became clear that the damage was so extensive that all the patients had to be moved.
The hospital still has 2½ feet of water in the basement, where fuel pumps are located, and it could not readily get fuel to backup generators upstairs. The elevators also aren’t working.