This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
The nation’s oldest public hospital—and the premier emergency institution in New York City—is the go-to place in the aftermath of a plane or train wreck, an all-out gunfight or a commercial airliner slicing through a skyscraper. Its staff has spent enormous time in preparation for the numerous scenarios—chemical, biological, nuclear—for which New York is the expected target.
Now it too has become a casualty of Sandy as the last 200 or so of the hospital’s 725 patients were being evacuated Wednesday night after fuel pumps for backup generators failed, a similar fate to what befell nearby NYU Langone Medical Center.
My colleague Larry Greenemeier pointed to the need for a fundamental reassessment of the city's urban infrastructure after the post-posttropical storm cleanup finishes. Planning for the next time—Good Night Irene—will by necessity require taking into account public-health preparedness.
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Bellevue, the first responder for so many health-care firsts, will be at those meetings because of its karmic history. Bellevue developed New York's first sanitary code, a worldwide precedent. It established the first hospital catastrophe unit. The first ICU in a municipal hospital went there. The list is actually quite a bit longer.
Bellevue has always been a bulwark of tough-guy New York, ready for the unexpected. Now it needs to set a new example in preparing for the unpredictable health requirements of a densely packed populace that faces a rising tide of warming salt water that threatens to make the Big Apple a physically smaller place.
Image Source: Jim Henderson
