Bellevue resumes admitting patients

Bellevue Hospital Center in New York announced it has started to admit patients again after damage from superstorm Sandy in late October forced the hospital to evacuate more than 700 patients and close.

The hospital is one of two owned by New York City Health and Hospitals Corp. that suffered extensive damage from the storm, which caused coastal flooding and widespread power outages as the storm reached land on Oct. 29. Health and Hospital Corp.'s Coney Island Hospital, also closed by flooding, began to admit patients in mid-January. The system said last month costs from the storm would total $810 million, including $180 million in lost revenue.

Bellevue is fully open, the system announced, while Coney Island has yet to fully open all inpatient beds and cannot yet accept ambulances in its emergency room.

Bellevue Hospital, which is a level 1 trauma center, and Coney Island were not the only New York state hospitals closed for weeks by the storm. NYU Langone Medical Center's Tisch Hospital, which evacuated during the storm, opened to admissions at the end of 2012. The VA New York Harbor Health Care System remains closed to admissions, as does Long Beach (N.Y.) Medical Center.