On Thursday, the Florida State Emergency Operations Center announced it will demobilize a 250-bed field hospital that was staged in Lee County.
The agency said in a statement the decision was made because county hospitals have maintained available bed capacity during the COVID-19 outbreak, and that it is poised to deploy field hospitals and staff to Lee County if needed.
In Collier County, Director of the Bureau of Emergency Services Division Dan Summers said recently during a conference call for the COVID-19 response in Immokalee, that there are no plans to bring field treatment operations to Immokalee.
“Let me just tell you that the severe weather that’s been rolling through our northern part of the state has made any of those field operations quite, quite problematic,” Summers said. “And our preference right now is obviously for the best care across the board, is what I’m referring to is bricks and mortar and we are in good shape there when it comes to hospital beds.”
Summers attributed the decision to readily available hospital beds in Collier County and neighboring Lee County.
Several calls and emails to Director Summers to elaborate on plans for expanding treatment options in Immokalee were not answered.
