Outside the sign for the Community Health of South Florida Inc. (CHI) Marathon Health Center is a mangled piece of metal. Its plastic contents were taken somewhere else by the fury of Irma’s hurricane force winds. Yet the structure of the health center is intact and inside new life is brewing, quite literally. Firdes Ozdemir is just weeks away from giving birth to her first child and she is being examined by Dr. David Forest during her first post-hurricane Irma visit.
“It’s a really big comfort, a safety, it feels like a big comfort for a woman like me who is 9 months pregnant,” said Ozdemir.
She is one of many patients relieved to see the Marathon Health Center back up and running. The nearby hospital had been down due to damage. CHI’s Marathon Center became a ray of hope amid so much loss.
“We had a patient who was so glad that our pharmacy had reopened after Irma,” said Flor Sanguily, Logistics Manager. “At the commercial pharmacy, his medicine was more than $400. But with our pharmacy, he was able to get it for $75. We worked very hard to re-open all of our sites quickly because we know our patients desperately needed access to our pharmacies and services.”It was an intensive effort by all staff to restore the health centers to services and be able to come back to work themselves. For nearly 10 staff members living in the Keys the challenge was even greater. They had lost everything, their homes, their belongings…. Everything.
“It’s difficult. Trying to reestablish your living quarters which have been underwater, roofs removed and all your personal belongings destroyed,” said Rick Henderson, R.N., Marathon Health Center site manager.
It was stories like these that made restoring services at all of CHI’s 11 health centers and 35 school-based centers a labor of love, wrought with urgency and intensity. CHI has been the safety net for the community for more than 45 years. For more than 30 of those years, Brodes H. Hartley Jr. has been at the helm as President and CEO of the non-profit, federally qualified health center. The former Army Colonel pushed to open services just one day after hurricane Andrew. Now 25 years later, Irma was pushing his patience. Power outages and down trees prevented the main site, the Doris Ison Health Center, from opening until two days after Irma. The following day, three more health centers reopened and the rest followed suit shortly after.
“CHI is the community’s resource and we understand that comes with great responsibility,” said Hartley. “I am proud of our staff for their perseverance. This was a very challenging situation. But together we used our own ingenuity and passion for patient care to overcome some tremendous hurdles.”
CHI’s leadership used every connection possible to try and get power restored to its centers. The main site went days without power and had to use a generator to run the site. In addition, the organization has a 24-hour in-patient crisis stabilization unit. This prompts the need for Florida Power and Light to add CHI to its hospital listing to aid with priority power restoration.
Each day, post Irma, the executive staff met to discuss challenges and find solutions. The meetings had also taken place prior to the storm to ensure everyone was aware of the (COOP) Continuity of Operations Emergency Preparedness Manual. Overall the organization was prepared and did well rebounding afterward.
Communications had its high points as well as its low points. A high point was that its call center switched over to a facility in Rhode Island so that patients were still able to call in and get some answers. Another win was the daily updates to staff sent via email and through supervisors. This was especially helpful before and after the storm. But during the storm, cell phone coverage, texting and internet access was spotty and non-existent for some. The satellite phones issued to leadership were also spotty and some of the aps installed for communications prior to the storm had a learning curve for some of the staff. In the future, CHI will invest in a hotline that staff can call into for a recorded message on the latest updates regarding work and CHI facilities. All of CHI’s security officers were able to continue to communicate despite the hurricane because they all had Nextel two-way radios. This might be another improvement for the future. Finally, the organization will make sure that everyone is up to speed on any technology or aps used to communicate before disaster strikes.
CHI used social media and TV and radio stations to get messages out to its patients about what facilities were open and closed. Moving forward, it might consider using social media to create additional lines of communication with staff as well.
For CHI, aid came from a number of different places. The leadership learned to speak to everyone about its challenges – you never know where help can pop up.
The non-profit knew it had staff who believed in its mission and people who were dedicated to return to work. The leadership worked hard to consider the well-being of its employees throughout and after the storm. CHI followed the county’s guidance and allowed employees to go home, board up their houses and care for their families 2 days prior to the hurricane. After the storm, it provided free lunch and breakfast for employees and even opened an emergency daycare for employees with children who had no place to put their kids. Miami Dade Public Schools were still closed but they had to return to work. Employees were also provided with information about resources such as FEMA and other aid organizations to help them restore their own lives and their own homes. Sometimes showing a little bit of compassion when tensions are high goes a long way among staff. Community Health of South Florida Inc. lived by the motto, “patient care comes first.” But it also carefully considered what its staff needed to be able to deliver that quality care to others.
For some staff, including Rick Henderson the site manager at Marathon who lost everything, the act of returning to work became a positive distraction from the devastation.
“I like being here,” he said. “Especially with my work and helping the others that have survived here. It gives me a good feeling of purpose and well-being for helping everyone.”
