New equipment arrives at 250-bed Lee County field hospital

Reporter: Morgan Rynor
Published: Updated:

New equipment for an emergency field hospital just arrived in Southwest Florida at the small airfield where the Lee County Mosquito Control District is based in Buckingham.

Jared Moskowitz, Director of Florida Division of Emergency Management said, “We are full steam ahead in setting up all of the temp beds the gov has talked about the 450 beds at a convention center in Miami and five 250-bed field hospitals around the state stationed around the state in case it becomes necessary.”

Moskowitz says the supplies for the 250-bed field hospital arrived Friday and is part of the beginning stages as they move trucks and supplies to the new makeshift facility.

The spokesperson for mosquito control says they are allowing emergency disaster services to store the equipment there for now—but if this field hospital is needed, EDS will likely look to the state for guidance on where to set it up.

Lee Health CEO Larry Antonucci said, “They’re going to build, but they’re not going to staff, they’re not going to trigger it unless we need to.”

“As it stands right now,” Antonucci added. “We have 74 positive COVID patients in our hospital, with 199 persons under investigation again these are patients that are showing symptoms. … Sadly we’ve had 16 death since the beginning of the crisis and we mourn each one of those.”

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