Middlesex Hospital gave NBC Connecticut a first look at its emergency department after authorities said Steven Ellam rammed his car into the emergency entrance of the hospital on Crescent Street last Thursday.
The car then burst into flames before Ellam set himself on fire.
About 90 percent of walls in the emergency room need to be replaced because of water and smoke damage.
Despite the damage, hospital officials said on Monday that the actual structure of the department remains physically sound. Hospital staff has been doing a lot of extra work, including removing equipment from the emergency department to be cleaned to construction crews fixing the damage left behind.
On Monday, boards partially covered the temporarily closed emergency entrance. Only walk-in patients were being served by going into the main entrance of the hospital and then taken to surgery rooms to be seen by hospital staff.
"On the issue of safety, that's something we're talking about,” Carl Schiessel, the director of regulatory advocacy at the Connecticut Hospital Association, which represents about 30 hospitals across the state, said.
Since the incident at Middlesex Hospital, the association has been in constant conversation with officials there. They need to figure out how hospitals can prepare for a similar event.
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"The need is to balance ready access to safety and security. So some of the conversations that are happening now are how do you protect your facility from this type of, I'll say for lack of a better word, attack?” Schiessel said. “While at the same time it is easy for the ambulances and families to get to patients in the emergency room to get the care they need."
Any patients who visit the Hospital's temporary emergency department space should drive to the main entrance of the hospital. A security officer will be there to greet them and they will be escorted to that temporary space.
As for the driver, Ellam, he is still in critical condition at Bridgeport Hospital.
