8/17/2009

Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital Reopens Beds

Other Services and Areas Continue to Reopen

(Louisville, KY)  Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital (SMEH) will reopen 53 patient beds today at 9 a.m. The beds include 41 in the A Wing and 12 in the Intensive Care Unit, all on the third floor. The MRI area will open as well.

“I am pleased and amazed by the progress we have made over the past two weeks,” said Tom Gessel, president/CEO of SMEH. “We have opened many areas and have most services available to the south Louisville community again. Our team members, medical staff, contractors and vendors have worked around the clock to bring us back.”

The Emergency Department, along with lab and radiology services, opened on August 12 providing treatment to 116 emergency patients. The normal average before the flood was 126 patients a day, bringing them back to a near normal average after a single day of being open. SMEH provides services to south Louisville’s 177,000 residents and is the second busiest emergency department in Louisville.

After the flood hit Louisville on August 4, SMEH moved nearly 200 patients to other local hospitals and facilities with the help of local emergency medical services. Some patients were discharged. A number of patients were transferred to Jewish Hospital. Nearly all of the transferred patients have been discharged at this time. Jewish Hospital opened several new beds and units to provide medical care for the patients. Many of the SMEH physicians, nurses, and clinical staff worked on site at Jewish Hospital to care for the transferred patients and other patients from the south Louisville community.

“Thanks to Mayor Jerry Abramson, Metro Government, the emergency medical services and other local hospitals for their support and resources as we weathered the flood during and after the crisis,” said Gessel. “We appreciate their support in transferring patients as we evacuated the hospital and their help in reopening the hospital to our community.”

Clean up will continue at the hospital with multiple contractors and vendors on site with generators and a temporary boiler in place to provide power and steam. Many areas have already had power and steam restored.

Other Areas Now Open:
-Bariatric Program
-ClinaCare
-CT
-Diabetes Education Classes
-Emergency Department
-Frazier Rehab
-HIM  Department
-HIPS - Hospitalists
-Lab
-Mammography
-MRI
-Outpatient Registration
-Patient Scheduling
-Pharmacy
-Physician Offices
-Radiology
-Respiratory Therapy
-Sleep Disorders Center
-Surgery Center (for outpatient surgeries)
-Ultrasound
-Women’s Center
-Wound Healing Center

Last year SMEH provided treatment for nearly 45,000 emergency department patients, over 12,000 inpatients and performed more than 10,200 surgeries.

The telephone number for community members to call for updates as they become available is 502-407-3069.  Information can be found by visiting jhsmh.org/smehupdates, as well as through our facebook page (facebook.com/jewishhospital) and twitter.com/jewishhospital.

Photo and interview opportunities are available to the media.

ABOUT STS. MARY & ELIZABETH HOSPITAL
Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital, is a 331-bed primary care hospital offering advanced treatment in cancer, cardiac care, lung disease, orthopaedics, vascular and general surgery and emergency services. Serving the south Louisville community for more than a century, Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital has literally cared for generations of families in this community. And our network of care is more than 30 facilities strong. One-hundred thirty-five years, thousands of needs, millions of blessings. That is our history and the future.

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