DENVER — The failure of a boiler system at AdventHealth Porter in south Denver forced the hospital to shut down services and evacuate patients and staff Monday because of no heat or hot water.
South Metro Fire Rescue and EMS personnel used ambulances to help hospital staff with evacuating patients to nearby facilities.
AdventHealth Porter CEO Todd Folkenberg said Monday that the boiler failure forced them to move 85-90 patients.
“The wild card right now is our behavioral health unit,” he said Monday afternoon. “So we’re still looking for some beds for some of our behavioral health patients. So that’s the vast majority.”
The hospital said Tuesday that they transferred 55 patients, and discharged the rest.
The hospital said the outage only affects the Porter campus at 2525 S. Downing St. The shutdown has not affected the medical office buildings at 850 and 950 E. Harvard or the Porter Medical Plaza at 2535 S. Downing St., which remain open and operational.
An incident command has been set up at the hospital, and it's closed to new patients.
“The good news is this is a lot different than a natural disaster where you may have to evacuate a hospital and you have 90 minutes to do it," Folkenberg said. "This is -- I know it feels chaotic, but it’s actually a very reasonable timeline for us to basically take care of this over the course of today.”
Staff was forced to reschedule all procedures and surgeries while they wait for an emergency boiler to be installed.
Folkenberg said two weeks ago they ordered a temporary boiler to replace the first one that stopped working.
“We had two boilers that were fully functional, and one of those boilers went down and we were not able to bring it up,” he said.
Then Monday morning, the second boiler went down before they could replace the first one.
“It was basically brought on by the cold snap that we had [Sunday]. It overtaxed the single boiler that we were running on [Sunday] night,” Folkenberg said.
Medical teams are working with patients who have been impacted and are trying to accommodate some procedures within the hospital's network of care when they can, the hospital said.
The hospital said in a news release that the leadership team "is working to determine staffing needs for the next few days. Clinical teams will deploy out to sister facilities to support patient needs as required."
The hospital said Tuesday that they hoped to reopen Nov. 6. On Thursday, they pushed that date back to Nov. 9. They said they hope to resume prescheduled surgeries on Nov. 13.
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Latest from 9NEWS