Not only did the storm leave Americus without its hospital, it also devastated virtually all the town’s private doctor offices, as well as the Sumter HealthPlex—a new, 8,000-square-foot, $3.1 million facility owned by the hospital. The HealthPlex provided outpatient imaging and laboratory services to the community.
In the days immediately following the tornado, the Middle Flint chapter of the American Red Cross—whose headquarters were also badly damaged—set up an emergency response center in the First Baptist Church of Americus that featured a makeshift emergency room. Dr. Davis and her staff of hospitalists, employed by TeamHealth’s Hospital Medicine Division, helped get the Red Cross center up and running. They also played a significant role in setting up a temporary urgent-care center in tents provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), supplemented by two tents belonging to the Boy Scouts.
By Any Means Necessary
Although local physicians with their own practices were well represented among the first responders, they were (for the most part) not involved with staffing the tent hospital, according to Dr. Davis. Most of the work in the tents was done by the emergency department (ED) physicians and TeamHealth doctors, in conjunction with Sumter Regional’s four hospitalists.
As soon as the tents opened, the ED “regulars” started showing up in droves,” explains Dr. Davis. Because a significant number of private physicians’ offices in town were destroyed there were no other healthcare options for many residents.
“It’s a difficult situation,” says Dr. Davis. “There are people in the community without cars, for example, whose cars were destroyed. So they have no other way to get to another hospital. They were astonishingly grateful to have us there.”
As residents cleaned up more than a month after the disaster, the urgent-care facility in the tents still functions as Sumter Regional’s ED. Routine lab work and X-rays were provided, and staff also monitored patients on blood thinners and gave injections to cancer patients.
In a pinch, the tents have served as an impromptu obstetrics suite. One woman delivered her child there after being unable to travel to Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, which is providing obstetrical services to mothers who would have gone to Sumter Regional.
A piece of wood was thrust through a wall at Sumter Regional Hospital during the March 1 tornado.
Care of the center’s cancer patients—a number of whom must take a bus to Albany for treatment—is now overseen by Phoebe Putney’s oncology department. Surgeons, too, have had to travel to other hospitals in order to operate. “It is a logistical nightmare,” says Dr. Davis.
While the urgent-care unit has been able to provide basic services, it has not been an easy task for the physicians and nurses who work there. Telephone lines have not been restored, making it virtually impossible to send faxes. Hospitalists and ED physicians staffing the tents have had to read their own films, essentially serving as their own radiologists. As Dr Davis notes, “You have to do the best with what you have.” Often, that is a bare minimum. Indeed, she once had to put in a central line to stabilize a patient. “It was pretty surreal treating (the patient) in a tent,” she says.
What’s Next?
FEMA Director David Paulison, who toured the devastated hospital with President Bush, says the immediate response was indicative of the “new FEMA.”
The facility’s staff, including four hospitalists, helped the Red Cross set up an emergency response center in the First Baptist Church of Americus and an urgent-care center made up of tents provided by FEMA.