Area ERs see many cases of flu-like illness

Area emergency rooms are seeing an increase in patients with flu symptoms as the swine flu continues to cause unprecedented levels of illness nationally and the supply of vaccine rolls out slower than expected.

Local hospitals are taking steps to restrict visitors and prepare for the possibility that emergency rooms at some point may not be able to handle a crush of patients.

"Our visits are up significantly. We are seeing more hospitalizations, but not everyone presenting needs to be hospitalized," J.C. Sadler, marketing director for HCA Inc.'s CJW Medical Center and John Randolph Medical Center, said yesterday.

Sadler said staff had practiced setting up tents that would be positioned outside the emergency room to handle an overflow of patients. She said HCA hospitals are prohibiting anyone under 18 or with flu symptoms from visiting hospital neonatal intensive care units.

At Bon Secours, "Our volumes are up slightly, but we are handling them all," spokeswoman Kim Brundage said.

Bon Secours operates St. Mary's and Richmond Community hospitals and St. Francis and Memorial Regional medical centers.

Brundage said the health system is evaluating visitation policy but has not placed any restrictions so far. Some hospitals in Hampton Roads and Roanoke are prohibiting access to anyone under 18 unless they are patients.

Young visitors still are allowed at VCU Medical Center, but that is being evaluated daily by a task force, spokeswoman Pamela Lepley said.

"We are seeing more people [with flu-like illness] coming in, but we are not overwhelmed," Lepley said.

Federal officials said flu activity for this time of year is unprecedented and described the number of children getting sick as "sobering." There have been 43 swine flu-related deaths since the beginning of September with 11 in the past week, they said.

Virginia Health Commissioner Karen Remley said yesterday that flu-like illness across the state is higher than it has been for the past two flu seasons. She said the state is not changing a message urging people to get swine-flu vaccinations even though the shots may be difficult to find during the next month because of vaccine production delays.

Television and radio spots and bus ads will start airing statewide Monday. School vaccination clinics in Chesterfield County and Richmond are continuing as planned next week with vaccine already in hand.

"We always knew that these were targets, that they were not actual numbers," Remley said. "They were planning numbers, so we have always planned for the contingency of having less vaccine and have been very careful in how we allocated vaccine in order to be able to work around changes to the number."

Remley said that as of yesterday, about 265,000 doses of vaccine had been shipped to Virginia. That vaccine is being sent to local health departments, hospitals and clinical providers treating people prioritized to get the first doses of H1N1 swine-flu vaccine.

Dr. William Nelson, Chesterfield Health District director, said school vaccine clinics will start Monday.

"We are proceeding so that we can vaccinate as many children as possible since we are in the middle of an influenza epidemic," Nelson said.

"I am encouraged that even though the vaccine production is disappointing, shipments are continuing and we will be able to use the vaccine almost immediately upon arrival. It is my hope that the area's residents will be patient and voluntarily set their needs aside while we get the children vaccinated."

Richmond also is going forward.

"The plan is to begin at schools with highest numbers of returned permission forms," Richmond City Health District spokesman George Jones said.

Mary Munford Elementary will be first, beginning Monday.

"Nearly 90 percent of permission forms were returned at this school," Jones said.

A tentative schedule for the rest of the week has been mapped out and will be announced once permission slips are confirmed, he said.

Contact Tammie Smith at (804) 649-6572 or .