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NZ - Swine flu pressure on hospitals

D

DazzaMc

Well-known member
Swine flu pressure on hospitals

15/07/2009 7:20:02

Hospitals are about to start feeling the strain swine flu is causing to the health system.

The number of deaths in New Zealand attributed to the virus has risen to nine. Ninety people are in hospital suffering from H1NI or its complications and 23 are in intensive care.

Health Minister Tony Ryall says GPs have already seen three times the number of cases of flu-like symptoms compared with the past two winters. He says there will be people with swine flu as well as cases of the usual seasonal flu strain, which will increase the number of people needing hospital beds.

Mr Ryall believes intensive care units in hospitals will soon fill up and some elective surgeries will have to be cancelled or postponed because there are not enough free beds. He says there is a strain on hospitals every winter, but swine flu is likely to exacerbate the problem.

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=160178
 
Re: NZ - Swine flu pressure on hospitals

Time to change the way the health system are fited, from JIT now, to enlarged, even with a part of state money loosings.

DazzaMc said:
Swine flu pressure on hospitals

15/07/2009 7:20:02

Hospitals are about to start feeling the strain swine flu is causing to the health system.

The number of deaths in New Zealand attributed to the virus has risen to nine. Ninety people are in hospital suffering from H1NI or its complications and 23 are in intensive care.

Health Minister Tony Ryall says GPs have already seen three times the number of cases of flu-like symptoms compared with the past two winters. He says there will be people with swine flu as well as cases of the usual seasonal flu strain, which will increase the number of people needing hospital beds.

Mr Ryall believes intensive care units in hospitals will soon fill up and some elective surgeries will have to be cancelled or postponed because there are not enough free beds. He says there is a strain on hospitals every winter, but swine flu is likely to exacerbate the problem.

http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=160178
Click to expand...
 
Re: NZ - Swine flu pressure on hospitals

hornblower - this article quotes the MOH as saying that 90% circulating is swine flu

Swine flu cases halt Canterbury operations
By MARC GREENHILL and KIM THOMAS - The Press Last updated 05:00 17/07/2009

All elective cardiac surgery in Canterbury has been postponed as swine flu overwhelms Christchurch Hospital's intensive care unit (ICU).

Hospital acting general manager Ruth Barclay said eight people requiring heart surgery had their operations postponed this week.

The ICU, which usually cares for a maximum of 12 patients, has been treating 15 people.

At least eight patients in the unit had swine flu or flu and required ventilation, Barclay said.

Surgery will resume when ICU numbers drop.

Swine flu has put some young people with no previous medical conditions in intensive care units around the country. The national death toll from swine flu yesterday hit 10.

The Ministry of Health said swine flu was the dominant virus circulating and accounted for up to 90 per cent of all flu-like illness.

Canterbury businesses could also soon feel the impact of swine flu.

Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce chief executive Peter Townsend said more than 847,000 weeks of labour could be lost if the infection rate reached the predicted 30 per cent peak.

The productivity loss was "very significant".

"Absenteeism is high and people are definitely being impacted by it. It is working its way through the community, and the business sector isn't excluded from that," he said.

"It's not a panic situation, but a situation we should manage to the best of our abilities."

About 30 staff were absent from Foodstuffs South Island's Christchurch head office on the same day last week.

The grocery giant's Hornby distribution centre was also stretched by the loss of ill workers, chief executive Steve Anderson said.

"We don't know if it was swine flu, but with the added awareness, people are staying away with colds as well," he said.

Townsend believed absence rates would rise. "Those issues are starting to increase and we're expecting it to peak somewhere around late August or early September."

The pandemic was a further blow for businesses struggling through the "biggest economic crisis since the Depression".

"Under normal circumstances, companies would be in a much better position to cope with the cost of absenteeism and the cost of declining production and sales due to the swine flu, but because we're all running pretty lean at the moment there's not a lot of room to move," he said.

Canterbury-West Coast Secondary Principals' Association chairman Denis Pyatt said he expected no problems with pupils returning from school holidays next week.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/swine-flu/2601427/Swine-flu-cases-halt-Canterbury-operations
 
Re: NZ - Swine flu pressure on hospitals

http://www.odt.co.nz/the-regions/otago/65635/southern-hospitals-may-take-swine-flu-overload

Southern hospitals may take swine flu overload

By Elspeth McLean on Fri, 17 Jul 2009
The Regions: Otago | Swine flu outbreak
Dunedin and Invercargill Hospitals are prepared to take in patients from the swine flu swamped Christchurch Hospital, but no patients have yet been transferred.

Otago and Southland District Health Boards incident controller Elaine Chisnall said all South Island boards were in contact to support each other as much as possible with the care of critically ill patients.

News reports yesterday said eight people were in the Christchurch intensive care unit with swine flu or flu-like illnesses who needed ventilation.

The unit had also had to increase the number of patients from 12 to 15 and might have to send patients to other South Island hospitals.

The Dunedin Hospital unit, which has been on the redevelopment project list for many years, can accommodate 10 patients, but usually only takes six because of space and staffing issues.

Yesterday, information was not available on whether there were any patients with confirmed swine flu in Dunedin Hospital's intensive care unit.

Mrs Chisnall said the hospital had been comfortable with the way patients with outpatient appointments had responded to the request to check in within three days of their scheduled appointments if they had experienced flu-like symptoms.

"We have only had a few people ring and most people who are ill with the flu have felt too ill to attend their appointment anyway, and have been given an alternative future appointment."

Nationally, the number of deaths related to swine flu rose yesterday to 10, with the death of a Tairawhiti man in his 40s who had serious underlying medical conditions.

Concern about reports of up to six new mothers infected with swine flu in Sydney being on life support after giving birth prematurely, because the virus was threatening the lives of their babies, prompted the Ministry of Health to draw attention to its advice to pregnant women.

It is not known if the Sydney women had underlying health issues.

The ministry was not able to give any statistics yesterday on the number of pregnant women in New Zealand who might be in hospital because of swine flu.

Deputy director of public health Dr Darren Hunt said pregnant women were a group at greater risk of complications from swine flu, including pneumonia, and needed to be particularly watchful for signs and symptoms of the virus.

They were more susceptible to all types of flu because of the physiological changes which occurred in pregnancy, including those to the immune system.

Pregnant women with flu-like symptoms should contact their general practitioner or Healthline for advice.

They could be prescribed antiviral medication, which was most effective if taken as soon as possible after the onset of symptoms.

Fever should also be treated quickly and paracetamol was the best treatment for fever in pregnancy.

Mothers who were breast-feeding should continue to do so because it would help babies to fight any infection.

Information about whether any pregnant women had been admitted to Dunedin Hospital with swine flu was not available yesterday.
 
Re: NZ - Swine flu pressure on hospitals

hornblower said:
Does NZ really have seasonal flu circulating? Or is it mostly novel H1N1?
Click to expand...

According to the ESR website, last week novel H1N1 made up about 75% of tested flu cases. There were large regional differences though, so whilst you could pretty much assume that "flu" in Christchurch was novel H1N1 in other places it only made up maybe 50% of cases. There's a "sticky" to the ESR site on here somewhere (presumably under "New Zealand")
 
Re: NZ - Swine flu pressure on hospitals

From Dr Kokoshs post:

Re: NZ - Swine flu overwhelms Christchurch hospital
Otago university seeing an explosion of flu cases as students return from holidays and engage in Re-O week celebrations. starting a few days ago - and multiplying today- many students sick - wide range of symptoms apart from hang-overs. 25,000 young people in the right target age group - will the local health dept be able to cope with what is evolving as of now.?
Click to expand...

The Canterbury hospitals will not be able to send extra patients south soon!
 
Re: NZ - Swine flu pressure on hospitals

#8/9

Yes: "Houston, we have a problem",
but seems that we will remain floating.

The more demoralising is the way things goes, everywhere the same patern of sympathetic "lasse fair" spreadings and minimizations until it became late.

"It is seasonal like", "It is not SARS" ...

SARS was easier to stopped, and seems they all make more efforts to achieve it than delay this changeable pandemic flu.

And nobody wide will stil be charged for the early starting omissions, actual infectious disease spreading tolerance, and future harms because of this agent.
 
Re: NZ - Swine flu pressure on hospitals

Some people are resentful of cases arriving in Dunedin as it is believed elective surgery will be cut as a result.
 
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