The hospital water is safe to flush and bathe, but not to drink. A situation that started off as a mess for construction crews is not putting officials at Gulf Coast Medical Center in over their heads.
"No panic, just follow through," said Gulf Coast Medical Center spokes person, Edy Rivard.
There was no running around, no alarms, just a simple reminder to guests patients and employees.
"Of course that's the biggest concern is that neither patients nor visitors drink any tap water," said Rivard.
A water main break that could have put the hospital with out water for hours only caused of few minutes of a dry spell, but the city of Panama City is issuing a boil water notice just to be cautious.
"We have done this often. We know how to respond. Our team is very good at this when we got the word... everybody did what they're supposed to do," said Rivard.
The hospital is putting into place what they are calling their contingency plan.
"In order to preclude that we shut off the water fountains, we put signs on the water fountains again, we brought bottled water in for drinking, and we've brought bags of ice in for consuming," said Rivard.
And to make sure day to day operations stay flowing smoothly, officials are implementing safety measures for operating rooms and surgeries.
"One is that the surgeons wash their hands and then they're rinsed with sterile water," said Rivard. "We also have a product just for surgery and its a waterless hand product so the surgeons can simply scrub with this product and go right into the operating room."
The hospital staff anticipated the notice to be lifted sometime Friday afternoon.
"We are prepared to manage it through whatever time it takes," said Rivard.
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