Dr. Justin Gayle has been busy since Hurricane Ike swept across Texas last week.

"I've kind of been the hurricane doctor," the director of women's services for the College Station Medical Center said Tuesday. "It's amazing, because I seem to be on call every time we get a hurricane."

On Friday evening, 15 women's services doctors stayed in the hospital to treat patients, and 23 were on immediate call, Gayle said.

"The baby business has really been big," he said. "There were five patients today that I saw. Then I have another five or 10 more on the books. All of them are due in the next week, and they haven't heard from their physicians."

The power outages in the Houston area have made communication a challenge, but Gayle said physicians in his unit have been happy to take up the extra load.

The Med and St. Joseph Regional Health Center in Bryan saw near-record patient levels in the aftermath of the hurricane -- driven largely by an influx of special-needs patients, representatives of the two health care providers said Tuesday.

A representative of The Physicians Centre in Bryan couldn't be reached for a comment.

The Med's emergency room saw 358 patients Friday through Monday. Eric Wilkie, The Med's emergency room medical director, estimated that 20 percent of those were hurricane evacuees.

The 18-bed emergency room also received several patients from hospitals in neighboring communities, such as Huntsville and Houston, Wilkie said.

St. Joseph saw 230 evacuees after the storm, spokesman Tim Ottinger has said.

Ottinger said the influx of patients put St. Joseph over capacity and the hospital's emergency room was unable to accept transfers.

"Dialysis has been a a big issue, especially in the early days starting on Friday. But that's been resolved," Ottinger said. "We're seeing a lot of patients that are diabetic, hypertensive or have other chronic illnesses."

The problem for many patients has been the change of routine or environment, Ottinger said.

Sherry Welch, chief nursing officer for The Med, said the College Station hospital functioned as a Level 1 trauma center during the hurricane.

"We had specialists that stayed in -- OBGYN, neurosurgery, pulmonology, cardiology, regular surgery, neonatology and anesthesia -- in addition to emergency medicine and primary care," she said.

Welch said the hospital also saw patients needing dialysis, four who came in for neurosurgery and several in cardiac arrest.

The Med also received a transfer patient -- a pregnant mother -- from Huntsville Memorial after that hospital lost power and had to use a generator, Welch said.

Welch said the baby was premature but was in good condition Tuesday.

Both hospitals began early in their preparation for the hurricane -- ordering supplies that representatives said have lasted through the disaster.

"We immediately started preparing staff and trying to understand their needs," Ottinger said. "A lot of our team members, we found out, live in rural areas and had no power, so we made some locker room, shower and restroom areas available to those team members so they can shower before they leave work or come into work each day."

Welch said The Med started child care center, staffed by business and accounting office employees, to care for the children of medical personnel who wanted to have their families close to them.

The hospital was also able to order enough food ahead of time to feed the staff and the families of patients, Welch said.

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2 comment(s) found!

Posted by: On: 9/17/2008

Comment Title: OOPS...wrong posting
The above posting was meant to be under "Hotel Rooms..." Sorry!

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Posted by: Concerned Taxpaper On: 9/17/2008

Comment Title: Evacuees Needing Rooms
Our community should not evict evacuees just for an A however, those reservations were made months if not a year in advance. It's a terrible situation for all so this is why the entire community needs to work together to find a solution. The area has many public school gyms where evacuees can be moved for the weekend providing them a place to stay. Yes, it will take a lot of effort, but we are all in this together. IKE has affected us all and we should all work together to help each other.

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