Yesterday, a dim hallway in Coler's adult patient unit. Photo provided to the Insider by a source.
Since Hurricane Sandy struck on Monday, more than 500 largely elderly and disabled patients had been living without heat or power in a public nursing facility and hospital on Roosevelt Island.
For four days, Coler Nursing Facility patients had been marooned in unlit rooms, fighting the cold with extra blankets and socks.
Power was partially restored to the facility on Friday evening, according to a Bloomberg administration spokeswoman, and this afternoon it has been fully restored, she said. Space heaters are being used, and heat and hot water is also set to be restored this afternoon as temperatures are expected to drop to the 30′s tonight. Councilwoman Jessica Lappin, D-Manhattan, who represents the area, said she had been “very concerned about the patients” but that residents had “generally expressed” a desire to stay.
As tropical storm Sandy hit Monday evening, the backup generator and boiler system both failed at Coler, a 1,000-bed facility on the northern tip of the island that sits in the East River between Manhattan and Queens. Earlier, more than 100 of the most vulnerable patients (many on ventilators) had been evacuated to Goldwater Hospital, another chronic care facility on the island, which is operating on backup power, according to the mayor’s office.
But some 550 residents had remained at Coler without heat or power. A source provided The Insider with photos taken inside Coler on Friday. They show a nurse walking through the children’s unit, and a dim hallway in the adult patient unit.Residents had food, and had been given extra blankets and socks, according to Ms. Lappin. Staff had been monitoring room temperatures and, when needed, moving patients into the warmest available space, Ms. Lappin said.
A city Health and Hospitals Corp. spokeswoman said it continues to “monitor the situation.”
“Coler is fully staffed and patients are safe,” the spokeswoman said. Running water was available through the ordeal.
Another public hospital that lost power, Bellevue, evacuated the last of its patients Thursday. At NYU Langone, which also lost power, patients were evacuated Monday evening. Unlike those hospitals, which provide emergency and general care, Coler serves patients needing long-term care, such as those with brain or spinal injuries, or elderly patients. Some had been injured in gang fights. Others were survivors of the polio epidemic more than 60 years ago.
Coler is located in Zone B and was not among the areas of the city with the highest flooding risk. The Bloomberg administration spokeswoman said a decision not to evacuate Coler had been made in part because it appeared at one point that tropical storm Sandy might be weakening.
“Because of the risks inherent in the large scale evacuation of elderly patients, a decision was made to shelter in place,” she said in an email, “at which time the most up to date information indicated that the storm was weakening and would be less severe than Irene.”
The spokeswoman said that the city had worked to ensure that health facilities had extra staff, that patients and residents were above the first floor, and that generators were operating.
One twist: Goldwater, the other hospital on Roosevelt Island that took in Coler’s most vulnerable patients, is slated for closure to make way for Cornell’s new tech campus. But it has not yet closed.
The president of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society, Judy Berdy, witnessed the partial evacuation of Coler, and wrote on the local blog Roosevelt Islander that its basement had filled with some five feet of water. The most fragile patients were carried down darkened stairways. Though the hospital evacuations have shown the city to have an ample supply of extra hospital beds, Mr. Berdy worried that the closure of Goldwater made isolated Roosevelt Islanders vulnerable.
“It is so sad to see the future of Goldwater,” Ms. Berdy wrote. “She suffered minimal damage and flooding during the hurricane. It is a tough old building but can withstand anything, but the bulldozer. Where will our fragile people go when her doors close…”
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