Punta Gorda hospital closed due to Helene storm damage

The ShorePoint Health Punta Gorda hospital and emergency room have been closed for a week due to Hurricane Helene. Outpatient services and physician clinics are open.

“Our priority is keeping safe, quality health care available to the community, and we will reopen our Punta Gorda campus as soon as possible," ShorePoint Health CEO Andy Romine says in a statement.

In preparation for the storm, which made landfall the evening of Sept. 26 as a category 4 hurricane in northern Florida, the emergency room in Punta Gorda closed at 6 p.m. Sept. 25. At the time, patients were transferred to ShorePoint Health Port Charlotte, officials say.

ShorePoint's Port Charlotte campus, which is a little more than 5 miles away, has remained open throughout and after the storm. Its hospital has 254 beds, compared with 208 in Punta Gorda.

During the storm, many roads became inundated, and water levels in the Punta Gorda canal network were 5 to 6 feet above normal, according to the Weather Channel.

The day after the storm made landfall, the ShorePoint Health Punta Gorda hospital and all clinics and outpatient services there were closed due to “the impact of storm surge and flooding from Hurricane Helene,” officials say.

By Sept. 30, outpatient services and physician clinics had reopened at ShorePoint Health Punta Gorda. However, the emergency room and hospital remain closed, officials say, and elevators servicing the clinics in the medical building are not operational.

"So many in our community have experienced devastation from the storm, even some of our employees, and we know this is a challenging time," Romine says in a statement. "We are grateful for the support provided by emergency management as our community recovers.”