Maybe we need more hospitals...

From CBS New York:

From Manhattan to Queens, hospitals remained closed Wednesday night while smaller facilities are being forced to pick up the slack. A lack of space at the city’s medical facilities is leaving no room for error.

In Manhattan, the shadow cast by two temporarily shuttered hospitals has many residents concerned about health care.

Sandy’s flood waters triggered evacuations at Bellevue and at NYU Langone, two hospitals that may not be able to reopen for months. As a result, many patients are being forced to travel for medical care.

Mount Sinai Hospital took in more than 100 evacuees from Bellevue, and Langone and is functioning fine for now, but with winter approaching some people are left questioning how long that will last.

Another major concern is money. Rebuilding damaged hospitals could cost more than $1 billion. The city has allocated $300 million for Bellevue and Coney Island hospitals, but neither is expected to be up and running any time soon.

From The Observer:

As if Sandy hadn’t made enough of a mess of the New York City, and particularly a number of its hospital, a new report from Independent Budget Office has found that 20 percent of hospital beds here are at risk of further destruction, being in or near potential flood zones. Of the city’s 62 hospitals, which have a combined capacity of 26,451 beds, five were evacuated during Superstorm Sandy, displacing more than 2,500 patients as a result.

With another eight hospitals in or adjacent to evacuation zone A, the study is a worrying indictment of how New York’s indisposed might be affected by future natural disasters if flooding as severe as that during Sandy is to happen again—as many officials, including the mayor and the governor, believe it probably will.