ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The only transplant program in Pinellas County is located at HCA Florida Largo Hospital and was temporarily moved to Northside Hospital in St. Petersburg when Hurricane Milton flooded the lower floors of the facility in October.

What You Need To Know

  • The team performed 16 organ transplant surgeries at Northside Hospital over two months

  • If the program had been forced to shut down, hundreds of patients would've had to start the process all over again

  • Dr. James Eason believes it's the first time this has ever happened in the United States

  • Jennifer Miller, 56, from St. Petersburg, was the first patient and received a liver transplant on Halloween

“We actually had to appeal to our regulatory agency to allow us to continue to do the transplants,” said Dr. James Eason, Chief Abdominal Transplant Surgeon. “We were fortunate enough that they gave us an approval and we believe this is the first time this has ever happened in the United States.”

Eason said the team performed 16 organ transplant surgeries at Northside Hospital, over a two month period, before moving the history making program back to Largo Hospital on Dec. 3. Those surgeries included one heart, two livers and 13 kidneys.

“We were able to just keep going like nothing ever happened and just moved facilities,” said Eason. “We had that opportunity to continue doing transplants in spite of this natural disaster.”

If the program had been forced to shut down, hundreds of patients on the transplant waitlist would have had to start the process all over again, with new doctors, at another hospital.

“It would have been a hardship on them,” Eason said. “It was very important that we were still able to provide that continuum of care.”

Jennifer Miller, 56, from St. Petersburg, received a liver transplant on Halloween and was the first transplant patient at Northside Hospital. Miller said she is glad she didn’t have to start all over again.

“That wouldn’t have been good for me,” she said. “I’ve gained a relationship with all these doctors.”

Miller said her surgery went smoothly and she’s thankful for a new lease on life.

“I’m doing good and thank God to this whole team,” she said. “I have a chance at a second life.”

The transplant program was stood up in one week at Northside. Eason said it was quite an undertaking of resources and it took a village to complete.

“We were really fortunate that we were able to find a hospital that would suit our needs and we were able to have our whole team, which is really the most important part,” he said. “We took our team of people here and we have doctors, nurses, surgeons, pharmacists, social workers, a whole hospital within the hospital.”

As of Monday, there were more than 500 people on the transplant waitlist at Largo Hospital, according to Eason.