Altru standing by to take patients from Minot if necessary

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Altru Health System is preparing to take in patients from Trinity Hospital – which includes Trinity and St. Joseph’s hospitals - in Minot if flooding there requires patients to be evacuated.

“If they do (evacuate patients), we are going to take as many as we can,” said Sandy Clark, hospital supervisor at Altru, late this afternoon.

Altru could take about 80 patients, Clark said.

A teleconference meeting at 4:30 p.m. with emergency and disaster officials as well as hospital officials in Minot and elsewhere included Altru officials in a meeting room at the hospital, Clark said. There was no order yet for Minot patients to be evacuated to Grand Forks, Clark said about 6:45 p.m. Thursday.

Altru already has alerted employees and compiled a call list for people who will be available over the weekend to work extra hours if needed, Clark said.

In the spring of 2009 when Fargo was flooded, Altru took in patients from hospitals there, Clark said.

During the Flood of 1997, patients were evacuated from Altru to facilities in surrounding communities.

Tags: gf and egf, altru health system, 2011 floods, north dakota, news, minot, hospitals, updates