Community Corner

Medical Center to Evacuate Patients Sunday Morning

CEO Douglas Meltzer explains how hospital and nursing home will move patients as Hurricane Sandy nears.


In the wake Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano’s mandatory evacuation of all health care facilities on the barrier island Saturday in anticipation of Hurricane Sandy, Douglas Meltzer, chief operating officer at Long Beach Medical Center, announced that LBMC and the adjacent Komanoff Center will start to transfer their patients and residents out of these buildings Sunday morning.

In a statement posted on the medical center's website Saturday, Meltzer said that the hospital’s and nursing home’s emergency preparedness team and administrative staff are collaborating with local and state agencies to ensure timely and appropriate transfer of patients and residents as part of an emergency preparedness program. The facilites are located on the 400 block of East Bay Drive. 

Patients of the medical center clinics were advised of required scheduling changes and accommodations were made for patients of the medical center’s Certified Home Health Care Agency and Long Term Home Healthcare Program, the statement read.

“Chronic dialysis patients who would normally be receiving their dialysis treatments on Monday are being notified that the dialysis center will be open this Sunday so they can receive their treatment and avoid traveling on Monday,” Meltzer said.  

Meltzer also said the medical center’s emergency department will remain open until all inpatients are transferred and will remain closed until the hospital reopens, after the storm passes and patients are returned and residents return to the buildings.

“Once again, the safety and well-being of the patients in our care is our utmost priority,” he stated.


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