Hospital prepared for storm, flooding
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on October 15, 2016 10:11 PM
Wayne Memorial Hospital weathered the storm better than most -- a combination of staff pulling together and a good generating system keeping services running.
Jeff Brogneaux, emergency preparedness coordinator, admitted it was a bit hectic at times.
In the days since Hurricane Matthew blew through Wayne County, the hospital has had some unique circumstances -- impassable roads making it difficult for staff as well as patients to get there, requiring staff to work longer shifts to pick up the slack.
"The first night during the hurricane, we had staff working extra or longer shifts than normal," he said. "They were trading out, different rotations, getting people in and out. People that couldn't get home, we've got those folks staying at the hospital and sleeping.
"We have a lot of patients as well so try to balance staff and patients as well."
There were a lot of people coming and going through the hospital's emergency department during that time, he said, but nothing directly caused by the storm.
"There hasn't been any one specific thing that stands out as far as a type of injury," he said, adding, "We have a lot of staff that's tired. They've worked hard."
Ambulances and emergency vehicles continued to roll throughout, Brogneaux said, although challenges did arise, especially when the Neuse River swelled and roads were closed.
"With basically the southern end of the county being cut off from us they developed a plan early in that, saying this is what we're going to be able to do," he said. "When (Highway) 117 gets cut off and we can't get across there then we're going to start triaging folks and using Dr. (Kevin) Talton and Dr. Hervy Kornegay Sr. down there and trying to treat folks in that end of the county and making decisions on where they need to go as far as, do we need to fly them out or do they need to drive and that kind of thing."
Wayne Memorial is equipped to handle such an emergency event, Brogneaux said, both as a facility and in staff preparation.
"We drill at minimum twice a year," he said. "Most of what we drill for is influx of patients. We get large numbers of patients.
"That's specifically a requirement for us. But severe weather is something we drill for not infrequently because every hurricane season there's always that threat."
Whether the threat actually materializes, efforts need to be in place as an insurance policy, he explained.
"We're basically prepared and I can't remember how many storms we've had so far this year but I've been sending e-mails to the leadership of the hospital several times a week as every storm starts to develop and grow and start making preparations for getting supplies and that kind of thing," he said. "That's something we've been doing very regularly this entire hurricane season."
The hospital also has generators in place in the event of power loss.
"We've got plenty of power," he said. "We have a very good generating system and we've got enough fuel to last us for considerably longer than any hurricane is going to bother us."
Even so, the hurricane still rendered the hospital without power.
"We lost Progress Energy," Brogneaux said. "We were cut off from normal power and we ran on generators for probably close to I would say about 12 h ours until that got turned back on and we maintained our generators running during that time as well for a little while just in case it flipped on or off and then in the process of everything coming back on, I can't remember if it was last night or the night before; they're all kind of running together.
"Progress Energy had apparently taken down a transmission line and that cut power to the hospital kind of suddenly. So we were dark there for about eight seconds before our generators came back on. And so they jumped back in just like they are supposed to. That was maybe an hour or two until the power came back on or was restored. So we've got lots of power but we were making our own for awhile."
The biggest effort for Wayne Memorial is taking care of its patients -- providing care and then getting them out of the hospital. In addition to emergencies, the day-to-day surgeries, procedures, etc. also have to be addressed.
"You don't stop all of those things," Brogneaux said. "We did go through our list of surgeries when we first started and basically called the folks and said, 'Are you going to be able to get here?' because if they couldn't come, we started figuring out what we were going to have and not going to have.
Emergent surgeries that came in were dealt with, he said, as well as any urgent surgeries, basically things that could create a larger problem if not fixed now.
"We did not do elective surgeries. We kind of postponed those and then (Wednesday) we were basically business as usual for surgeries," he said. "So we had one day that we held things up a bit and (Wednesday) we were business as usual and (Thursday) we're business as usual."
Brogneaux, who was working at the hospital during two previous hurricanes, Fran and Floyd, said he feels this time went even better as far as staff response.
"Honestly, I could not be more proud," he said the hospital's employees. "There's a lot of staff that don't have power or can't get across the river, things like that, and there have been more people saying, 'Hey, I've got power. Do you want to come over and a shower at my house' or 'You can stay with us.' They've really come together as a family.
"We've had Campbell (University) student doctors, Campbell closed class for them. They didn't have class and they've been volunteering at the hospital to help out. It has really been a group effort. Everybody has pulled together and really done a great job."