http://www.ottawacitizen.com/health/Scale+anticipated+pandemic+frightening+Doctor/1958388/story.html
Scale of anticipated flu pandemic 'frightening': Doctor
By MEagan Fitzpatrick, Canwest News ServiceSeptember 3, 2009 9:35 AM
WINNIPEG ? An intensive care doctor speaking Wednesday at a conference on the H1N1 pandemic said the virus is the "most frightening" thing he has seen in his career ? and other experts here warned that hospitals are not yet ready for a surge of severely sick patients.
In an interview just prior to his address, Dr. Anand Kumar said he wanted to give the audience "the flavour" of what hospitals can expect to see when the second wave of the pandemic is expected to come this fall and winter.
"I think it's an absolutely massive onslaught of incredibly sick young people that I had never imagined I would see in my life," Kumar said of his experience treating patients in Winnipeg's intensive care units. "It's startling, and more than a little frightening, especially when you don't know what the ceiling of this is going to be."
The two-day conference, which has drawn together about 150 health-care professionals and experts from across the country and around the world, is focused on how to manage severe cases of the swine flu and prevent them from deteriorating. Also on the agenda are discussions about Canada's vaccine strategy ? under attack this week from the Canadian Medical Association Journal ? the use of antivirals, medical ethics and clinical care guidelines. The sessions are closed to media.
Most cases of swine flu in Canada have been mild, but there is a subset of patients who are getting very sick. At least 72 deaths have been linked to H1N1 and more than 1,366 people have been hospitalized. Of those patients, more than 240 have spent time in intensive care units.
The virus's behaviour differs from that of other flu bugs in that it attacks younger people at disproportionately higher rates, rather than the very old and very young who are normally more susceptible to flu. Researchers still don't know why it is hitting some people so hard, particularly when they have no underlying health conditions or risk factors such as pregnancy.
Kumar said that, of the patients who were hospitalized in Winnipeg, two-thirds were young and healthy people who were "essentially struck down in the prime of their life" and that hospitals were filled with "rows and rows" of young patients in their 20s, 30s and 40s. He called it a "bizarre experience."
"I've been doing this for 28 years and it's probably the most frightening thing I've ever seen professionally," he said.
Some of the people who got "spectacularly ill" could barely get any oxygen from a ventilator into their lungs because they were so filled with fluid, said Kumar, and some patients had lungs so damaged that a ventilator didn't work.
Despite the rather ominous description offered by Kumar, he said young and healthy people shouldn't be scared and that the vast majority of people who contract the virus recover well.
Hospitals, however, know they need to prepare for an onslaught of critically ill patients in the event the pandemic worsens.
Dr. Robert Fowler, a critical care specialist and associate professor at the University of Toronto, said the second wave is not going to hit every city at the same time and jurisdictions should be able to share resources, such as ventilators and personnel. Those plans are not yet ready to be activated, said Fowler, and hospitals in general are not ready for high numbers of swine flu patients to walk through their doors.
"Are we ready? I think lots of work has been done, but we're not ready," said Fowler. "There's still lots more work to be done over the next weeks to months."
Some hospitals are already pushed to their limits when caring for critically ill patients, and the possibility of being pushed beyond those limits is causing a lot of worry, he said.
Dr. Gerald Evans, an expert from Queen's University who will address the conference Thursday, echoed those concerns.
"Canadian health care is sort of premised on the idea that we run at near 100 per cent capacity, so the lack of a surge capacity, the ability to take a big huge surge of people, is a significant problem," he said.
More hospital beds are needed, more advanced ventilators are required, as well as the people trained to operate them, and strategies are needed to prevent serious cases from turning deadly, the experts said. Those strategies will be discussed in detail during the second day of the conference.
? Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Scale of anticipated flu pandemic 'frightening': Doctor
By MEagan Fitzpatrick, Canwest News ServiceSeptember 3, 2009 9:35 AM
WINNIPEG ? An intensive care doctor speaking Wednesday at a conference on the H1N1 pandemic said the virus is the "most frightening" thing he has seen in his career ? and other experts here warned that hospitals are not yet ready for a surge of severely sick patients.
In an interview just prior to his address, Dr. Anand Kumar said he wanted to give the audience "the flavour" of what hospitals can expect to see when the second wave of the pandemic is expected to come this fall and winter.
"I think it's an absolutely massive onslaught of incredibly sick young people that I had never imagined I would see in my life," Kumar said of his experience treating patients in Winnipeg's intensive care units. "It's startling, and more than a little frightening, especially when you don't know what the ceiling of this is going to be."
The two-day conference, which has drawn together about 150 health-care professionals and experts from across the country and around the world, is focused on how to manage severe cases of the swine flu and prevent them from deteriorating. Also on the agenda are discussions about Canada's vaccine strategy ? under attack this week from the Canadian Medical Association Journal ? the use of antivirals, medical ethics and clinical care guidelines. The sessions are closed to media.
Most cases of swine flu in Canada have been mild, but there is a subset of patients who are getting very sick. At least 72 deaths have been linked to H1N1 and more than 1,366 people have been hospitalized. Of those patients, more than 240 have spent time in intensive care units.
The virus's behaviour differs from that of other flu bugs in that it attacks younger people at disproportionately higher rates, rather than the very old and very young who are normally more susceptible to flu. Researchers still don't know why it is hitting some people so hard, particularly when they have no underlying health conditions or risk factors such as pregnancy.
Kumar said that, of the patients who were hospitalized in Winnipeg, two-thirds were young and healthy people who were "essentially struck down in the prime of their life" and that hospitals were filled with "rows and rows" of young patients in their 20s, 30s and 40s. He called it a "bizarre experience."
"I've been doing this for 28 years and it's probably the most frightening thing I've ever seen professionally," he said.
Some of the people who got "spectacularly ill" could barely get any oxygen from a ventilator into their lungs because they were so filled with fluid, said Kumar, and some patients had lungs so damaged that a ventilator didn't work.
Despite the rather ominous description offered by Kumar, he said young and healthy people shouldn't be scared and that the vast majority of people who contract the virus recover well.
Hospitals, however, know they need to prepare for an onslaught of critically ill patients in the event the pandemic worsens.
Dr. Robert Fowler, a critical care specialist and associate professor at the University of Toronto, said the second wave is not going to hit every city at the same time and jurisdictions should be able to share resources, such as ventilators and personnel. Those plans are not yet ready to be activated, said Fowler, and hospitals in general are not ready for high numbers of swine flu patients to walk through their doors.
"Are we ready? I think lots of work has been done, but we're not ready," said Fowler. "There's still lots more work to be done over the next weeks to months."
Some hospitals are already pushed to their limits when caring for critically ill patients, and the possibility of being pushed beyond those limits is causing a lot of worry, he said.
Dr. Gerald Evans, an expert from Queen's University who will address the conference Thursday, echoed those concerns.
"Canadian health care is sort of premised on the idea that we run at near 100 per cent capacity, so the lack of a surge capacity, the ability to take a big huge surge of people, is a significant problem," he said.
More hospital beds are needed, more advanced ventilators are required, as well as the people trained to operate them, and strategies are needed to prevent serious cases from turning deadly, the experts said. Those strategies will be discussed in detail during the second day of the conference.
? Copyright (c) Canwest News Service