Emergency Rooms Still Swamped From Wilma

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PLANTATION, FL (AP) -- Six days after Hurricane Wilma, emergency rooms around South Florida are swamped -- not with emergencies but with routine medical problems.

With more than 1 million people still without power, many doctors offices in the region have been closed for a week. In some communities, hospitals have become the only place for people to get health care, said Kerting Baldwin, a spokeswoman for the Memorial Healthcare System, which includes five hospitals in Broward County.

"The hospitals don't stop running," she said. "We do whatever it takes."

To ease the crunch, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has set up four disaster medical assistance teams, or DMATs, at hospitals to help people with minor injuries, prescription medicine or those trying to follow up on routine medical care.

In Plantation, the Westside Regional Medical Center was seeing double the amount of normal emergency room traffic in the days after Wilma hit, Chief Executive Earl H. Denning said.

"They were being overrun," said Bill Wallace, who is commanding a team of 35 doctors, nurses and others working out of four tents set up in the hospital's parking lot.

By Sunday morning, the team had seen 190 patients since opening on Thursday afternoon.

Ten percent of the patients had injuries or illnesses directly related to the hurricane, Wallace said. Many more needed attention they could have received from their regular doctor but couldn't because the offices were shut down. The services are free.

Edward Grant, 58, of Lauderdale Lakes, said he would have gone to his regular doctor for treatment of a boil, but the office doesn't have electricity and was damaged by the storm. He made his second trip Sunday to the tents and barely had to wait before being seen. On Tuesday, he spent 14 hours in an emergency room at another hospital.

"It's been a godsend," Grant said. "Emergency rooms are still packed. The service here has been great."

People dependent on oxygen or those needing regular dialysis were forced to go to the hospital when their power was out, Baldwin said. Almost a week after the storm, some dialysis centers have yet to reopen.

"I expect to be very busy until electricity is restored," said Denning, of Westside Regional.

Tim Swett, 41, of Tamarack, aggravated an existing back problem while he was helping his mother clean up her yard after the hurricane. He said he waited five hours in an emergency room before leaving, but quickly saw a doctor in the tents outside Westside Regional.

"You can't get any regular doctors on the phone," Swett said. "You can't get anything filled."

Florida Power & Light, the state's largest electric utility, said some areas might not get their power back until Nov. 22, two days before Thanksgiving. But in many communities the lights were back on, and 2.2 million customers that lost power after the hurricane were back online by Sunday morning, the company said.

One sign of progress was the lack of hours-long gas lines that plagued the area and frustrated residents in recent days. Though some gas stations were still closed, many were back up and running, and people only had to wait a few minutes, if at all, to fill their tanks.

The Lower Keys and Key West was scheduled to open to tourists on Monday. Previously, only residents were allowed in the area.

But traffic lights were still out around the region, and debris, broken glass, toppled trees and downed power lines continued to create an obstacle course for motorists.

The death toll from Wilma climbed to 21 in Florida during the weekend, state officials said. Six people died in traffic crashes, while three deaths were attributed to carbon monoxide.

On Saturday, a 55-year-old man working to clean up debris was killed when a mechanical excavator flipped over and knocked down an electrical transformer and power lines. His death was not included yet in the state's death toll.

Wilma was the eighth hurricane to strike or pass by Florida in 15 months. It came ashore Oct. 24 as a Category 3 storm on the southwest coast. Weather officials said it dropped to a Category 1 or 2 as it slammed through Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.

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