23 Houston-area hospitals move patients; 25 more are vulnerable

Editor's Note

At least 23 hospitals in the Houston area affected by flooding from Hurricane Harvey have moved patients to other facilities, and another 25 are considered vulnerable to flooding or shortages of staff and supplies, the August 29 Houston Chronicle reports.

The full tally of evacuated patients was not clear, but medical crisis coordinators placed the number as high as 1,500.

The George R. Brown Convention Center, which opened as an emergency shelter, had more than 9,000 people, many of whom had been separated from their medications by the flooding. Volunteer physicians from Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Medical Center, set up a makeshift medical unit and prescribed replacement medications.

As the flooding crisis deepened Tuesday in Houston, its vast network of hospitals - a jewel in the city's crown - staggered under an uncertainty of how and where to care for its sickest patients.