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Possible flu pandemic has state worried about beds, ventilators
by The Associated Press
ATLANTA - Severe shortages of hospital beds and life-saving ventilators are among the problems Georgia officials are facing as they plan for a flu pandemic that is expected to quickly overwhelm the state's health-care system.
"No, public health and the hospitals are not ready, said Dr. J. Patrick O'Neal, medical director of the state Office of Emergency Medical Services, in a presentation to state lawmakers a few days ago.
Pushed by the federal government, officials in Georgia and other states have been trying to prepare for a potential deadly new form of influenza.
Georgia hospitals have only 16,000 staffed beds.
uenza. Experts believe such an outbreak is inevitable, and they worry the bird flu circulating in Asia could become the agent.
Georgia officials are planning for the possibility that about 3 million of the state's 9 million residents would get sick in such an outbreak.
The illnesses could occur in waves, and not all would necessarily need hospital care. But as many as 300,000 people could be trying to get into Georgia hospitals, which have only 16,000 staffed beds.
More than 12,000 other hospital beds could be put to use, but it's not clear there are enough doctors, nurses and other medical personnel to staff them, O'Neal said.
"We have a terrible problem in Georgia with the shortage of health care workers," he added.
Ventilators also will be needed to help patients with severe breathing problems. Georgia officials expect 20,000 people would need ventilators over the course of a pandemic, but the state only has 1,500, O'Neal said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
With the help of federal funding, the state is purchasing 2,000 portable ventilators, but they may not be durable enough for the kind of patient traffic that may occur, O'Neal said.
Another problem: More local planning is needed. When outbreaks occur, health officials probably will not have adequate supplies of vaccines or flu-fighting antiviral medications. That means officials will have to decide who gets the limited supplies, and figure out ways to enforce those decisions in each community.
They likely will have to come up with other ways to control spread of the disease, such as closing schools and restricting public gatherings. That too will require local involvement.
The state has established more than 30 local-level public health pandemic planning groups, but community involvement needs to be stronger, O'Neal said.
"We're still struggling to engage the public at the local level," he said.
Despite O'Neal's concerns, Georgia got relatively decent marks on a national pandemic planning report card recently released by a non-profit organization. The organization _ Trust for America's Health _ gave Georgia points for having adequate testing laboratories, flu surveillance and other measures in place. Georgia ranked among the top half of states.