Keys hospitals evacuate patients

All Florida Keys hospitals started to evacuate patients Tuesday afternoon, while Middle and Upper Keys hospitals remained open and hospital officials at all three tracked the path of Hurricane Irma.

Jennifer Pages, manager of marketing and communications for Fishermen’s Community Hospital and Mariners Hospital in Tavernier said the hospitals were working with Monroe County Emergency Management to “figure out what we’re going to do at this time and what is needed.”

Tuesday afternoon, she said the Middle and Upper Keys Baptist Health South Florida-affiliated hospitals remained open but were in the process of evacuating patients to other Baptist hospitals. In past storms, some patients were flown as far as Alabama.

“Then families are notified. We are beginning to ramp down elective surgeries, procedures and treatments,” she said.

She could not say when Fishermen’s or Mariners, both 25-bed critical-access hospitals, would close their doors.

Lynn Corbett-Winn, director of marketing for Lower Keys Medical Center on Stock Island, said hospital officials are working closely with the county and began evacuating patients at the 167-bed facility Tuesday afternoon.

“We’re following the progress of the storm,” she said.

Corbett-Winn did not say if and when the hospital will close.

This story was originally published September 6, 2017 at 10:37 AM with the headline "Keys hospitals evacuate patients."