AdventHealth West Florida Division COVID-19 Update

By Press release submission

Sep 18, 2021

AdventHealth North Pinellas issued the following announcement on September 14.

AdventHealth West Florida Division COVID-19 Update

AdventHealth hospitals in the health system’s West Florida Division have started to see a decline in COVID-19 admissions. As a result, the following hospitals will begin rescheduling and resuming some elective procedures:

AdventHealth Carrollwood
AdventHealth Dade City
AdventHealth North Pinellas
AdventHealth Sebring
AdventHealth Tampa
AdventHealth Wesley Chapel
AdventHealth Zephyrhills

All patients will be contacted directly to reschedule procedures.

**AdventHealth Ocala in Marion County continues with normal operations**

Updated: September 1, 2021

AdventHealth West Florida Division has started to see a slight decrease in COVID-19 hospitalizations. However, hospitalizations for COVID continue to remain at the highest levels seen throughout the pandemic.

In response to media inquiries regarding morgue capacity in the West Florida Division, please reference the below statement:

“We have a robust emergency management program, which has allowed us to continue to care for our community during this surge with thorough planning and precautionary measures. With the spike of seriously ill patients in our hospitals, and the current strain and throughput issues with local funeral homes, it’s become necessary that we put resources in place to provide additional morgue capacity at AdventHealth Tampa.”

AdventHealth is currently caring for over 600 COVID-19 patients overall at its facilities across the West Florida Division, most of whom are unvaccinated. AdventHealth Tampa currently has approximately 115 of those COVID-19 patients.

According to AdventHealth Tampa’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Doug Ross, “the Delta variant of COVID-19 is very different than the strain we saw in our community last year. This variant spreads more rapidly and affects a younger group of people in their 50s, 60s and 70s, who may or may not have underlying health factors. We are seeing otherwise healthy people become seriously ill from the virus, and the majority are unvaccinated. We continue to urge people to get vaccinated to protect themselves and their community.”

ELECTIVE PROCEDURES

AdventHealth Tampacontinues to pause elective procedures that are not time-sensitive urgent, or emergent. This decision allows us to further plan for the increased need for hospital beds, resources, and advocate for patients and team members. Patients will be notified if their procedure will be canceled.

AdventHealth Carrollwood, AdventHealth Dade City, AdventHealth North Pinellas, AdventHealth Sebring, AdventHealth Wesley Chapel, AdventHealth Zephyrhills paused either some or all non-time sensitive and non-emergent procedures.

There are NO CHANGES at AdventHealth Ocala.

All AdventHealth West Florida Division hospital locations will continue with time-sensitive urgent and emergent surgeries and procedures as scheduled.

AdventHealth hospitals are designed to create flexible and expandable spaces for patient care. We are available to quickly and safely convert existing spaces in the hospital into standard patient rooms or ICU/critical care rooms, should they be needed due to increased demand.

VISITATION

All AdventHealth West Florida Division hospital locations in Tampa Bay and Sebring are currently limiting visitors. The limitation of visitors applies to the following locations: