Winter is crunch time for hospitals.

The ERs are over-flowing.

People have heart attacks from shoveling snow, a strenuous activity which can trigger a call to 911.

They fall. If they fall on ice, the fall’s impact is compounded. Those falls can be very serious.

Each hospital has, as anyone who watches TV must know by now, specialized units staffed and equipped for patients with the diagnoses that kind of unit treats. The point? The total number of beds in hospitals in America can mask how many beds actually are appropriate and available for pandemic flu patients.That is one of the many reasons why pandemic planners are scrambling. Many hospitals are planning “surge units” for pandemic patients but there is no way to know if those will be enough. The federal government estimates suggest that as many as 300,000 patients nation-wide may need an Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

As many experts have said, relatively few people will need hospital beds when compared to the total sick population, but that again does not tell the tale. When the hospitals a community counts on are full, they are full. Some communities are “over-bedded,” that is, they have more than they need. Others are under-bedded, having fewer than they need. In remote areas,  the nearest hospital may be many miles away.

Washington Post

• Millions of people will be seeking medical help from doctors or hospitals within the same time frame.

• While experts says only a small percentage of patients will require a hospital bed, and a still smaller number an intensive care bed, the pandemic is expected to  add a lot of pressure to an already over-taxed emergency response system.

• The federal government is sending $350 million to state and local governments to help them prepare for the total number of patients and pandemic-specific supplies they need, says this story.

• “The Strategic National Stockpile has more than 116 million masks, more than 52 million doses of antiviral drugs and 4,500 ventilators. (Emphasis added)

• “Federal officials are asking hospitals to report more current details about how stressed or well-equipped they are so the officials can help coordinate care in a crisis. They have also begun to count available ventilators, which could be crucial in caring for the sickest patients.” (Emphasis added)

“The swine flu virus, also known as H1N1, could infect up to half the U.S. population, making as many as 1.8 million sick enough to need hospitalization, including as many as 300,000 who might need intensive care, according to a presidential advisory council estimate. Even though scientists reported Thursday that the vaccine appears to work much better than hoped, the second wave of U.S. infections is expected to peak next month — well before the shots become widely available.” (Emphasis added)

Source: The Washington Post, September 12, 2009