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Hospital readies for flu
Sunday, September 13, 2009
By MICKEY POWELL - Bulletin Staff Writer
An outbreak of severe cases of H1N1, or swine flu, could cause Memorial Hospital in Martinsville to send people with less severe cases of the flu or other illnesses to other medical centers, a hospital executive said.
The entire hospital basically would become an intensive care unit, said Faye Sedwick, Memorial?s director of quality assessment services who also handles infection control.
?We?re in the early planning stages? for such an outbreak, Sedwick said. She noted that the Henry-Martinsville Health Department is helping with the plan.
If an outbreak of severe cases of influenza occurs, she said, ?we don?t want to use hospital resources for non-critical? cases.
The hospital mainly would provide inpatient care to flu sufferers who ?need very, very acute intensive care,? such as ventilation equipment to help them breathe, Sedwick said.
People with less-severe flu cases seen in the emergency department or by other medical centers would be sent home to recuperate, she said.
Those whose illnesses are not life-threatening, yet who need intravenous fluids, would receive the fluids elsewhere, such as a doctor?s office, before being sent home, she said.
Chris Garrett, emergency planner for the health department, said area residents who think they have the flu would undergo ?a triage situation? to determine how sick they actually are. The triage would be based on Virginia Department of Health guidelines that are being developed, he said.
Sedwick said the hospital would try to set some rooms aside for people with other types of severe illnesses or injuries ? such as victims of car accidents ? who need inpatient services.
If all beds are needed for flu patients, though, other patients could be transferred to hospitals in nearby communities, she said.
The flu so far has not been a problem for Memorial. Sedwick said that only two or three patients examined in the emergency department recently are suspected to have had the flu, and none were admitted to the hospital.
In addition, one nurse and two children of clinical employees have been diagnosed with the flu, she said. They were not severe cases, she added.
She emphasized that she was referring generally to people with the flu. The number of people who actually have contracted H1N1 cannot be determined because the state no longer is requiring patients? flu tests to be sent to a state lab for analysis, she said.
When people test positive for Type A flu, ?we?re considering it to be? H1N1, Sedwick said, because the regular Type A flu season has not yet arrived.
However, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is suggesting that people get their regular annual flu vaccination now for the season that will start this fall, she said.
Vaccine for H1N1 is expected to be available by mid-October, she said.
Under federal guidelines, health care providers will be among the first to get the H1N1 vaccination to help them avoid catching the flu from patients.
H1N1 so far has been considered a pandemic ?because of its spread, not its severity,? Sedwick said. ?That?s been a blessing? for health care providers.
But ?everybody?s worried about it? getting worse, she said.