Storms Keep North Shore-LIJ Hospitals Busy

North Shore-LIJ hospitals and nursing facilities saw a surge of patients as two storms battered Long Island in the last several days.

Earlier this week, John D'Angelo, vice president of emergency services, said, "Most NSLIJ hospital emergency rooms are seeing a persistent increase in volumes of about 30 percent more than normal volumes since the storm."

Some of the increase was attributable to closures of primary care offices becaue of lack of power. Others were in need of services like dialysis, refills on meds, low supplies of home oxygen or in need of power for CPAPs for sleep apnea.

About 270 patients were evacuated from hospitals in Coney Island, Long Beach, NYU Langone, Bellevue and several nursing homes across Long Island and placed in the hospital system's hospitals.

"We also took in many people from the community who came to our hospitals seeking shelter, including those who are dependent on ventilators who were concerned about power outages, emergency room patients and their family members/friends who showed up at our hospitals during the storm and then could not get home, as well as the 'worried well'," spokesman Terry Lynam said.

North Shore-LIJ’s 16 hospitals and three skilled nursing facilities took in about 270 patients from other hospitals, nursing homes and shelters that were evacuated and closed across Long Island and New York City. In the days leading up to the storm, our hospitals discharged as many non-acute cases as they could, with the assumption that we would see a surge in patient volume during the storm. 

Many hospital employees were also hit hard by the storms. As of late Thursday, the system had placed 234 North Shore-LIJ employees and family members in housing, and raised $2.3 million for employee and community relief efforts.

About $2 million of the relief funds were raised at Monday's Lenox Hill Hospital Autumn Ball that were redirected to hurricane response efforts.

Other employees also donated more than 1,000 paid-leave hours to help colleagues to assist co-workers who will need to take time off to recover from the storms' damage.