LARGO, Fla. — In the parking lot of HCA Florida Largo Hospital, you’ll find an innovative approach to serving the community as the hospital makes repairs after Hurricane Milton: its new mobile medical unit.
“It has been an adjustment to work in the parking lot here, but it actually is a lot roomier inside than you would think,” said Nick Moore, the Assistant Medical Director for HCA Florida Largo Hospital.
The 2,700-square-foot space provides patients emergency services at the hospital's main campus and is ready to serve 8 to ten patients at a time with the ability to expand as needed.
“We offer almost everything that our normal freestanding emergency departments would offer,” said Moore. “We have labs, imaging, ultrasound. If patients need to be admitted, we reach out to our transfer center to get them admitted to our sister facilities in the area.”
The hospital said it safely transferred patients and closed after flooding during Hurricane Milton. Video showed the flash flooding that put the hospital’s basement under water between four to seven feet.
“That flash flooding took out kind of the lower level of the hospital where we house our building infrastructure and utilities, and so from the ground level up, we’re fine, but that lower level with utilities, that was taken out, and so we had a loss of power,” said Sebastian Strom, the CEO of HCA Florida Largo Hospital.
Strom said there’s more than 200 workers coming and going around the clock to help get them up and running as soon as possible. In the meantime, they’ve adapted to help meet the needs of the community.
“It’s not going to be a handful of days. It’s also not going to be a handful of months, but we think that in a few week's time, we’ll be able to open the hospital back up again,” said Strom.