N.J. Hospitals Prepare For Possible Bird Flu Outbreak
UPDATED: 2:14 pm EDT October 26, 2005
NEWARK, N.J. -- New Jersey hospitals are making plans to handle an influx of patients in case deadly bird flu reaches the state, but experts say no effort may be sufficient in case of an outbreak.
"We'll definitely have problems. Right now, we're at capacity and winter season is a busy time anyway," David Seaberg, a spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians, told The Star-Ledger of Newark in Wednesday's editions.
If emergency rooms become filled, some hospitals plan to evaluate patients in courtyards and parking decks, the newspaper reported. Hospitals are also stockpiling an antiviral drug, Tamiflu.
The hospitals must be ready to isolate patients suspected of having the disease, and be ready with extra staff, beds and supplies, Ron Czajkowski, spokesman for the New Jersey Hospital Association, said Wednesday.
The preparations come as the dangerous H5N1 strain appears to be moving west from Asia. Authorities said Wednesday that the bird flu was found in another European nation, Croatia, and China announced that a bird flu outbreak has killed 545 chickens and ducks in a village in central China -- the country's third case of the disease in two weeks.
The strain has devastated poultry populations in Asia and killed 62 people, although it is not easily spread to people. Scientists fear it will mutate into a flu that is both contagious and deadly to people and which would quickly spread around the globe through international travel.
Human-to-human transmission would pose many challenges for hospitals, and not just from those who were sickened.
"You will also have the 'worried well,' who think they have it but are perfectly healthy," Patricia Lafaro, director of infection control for Somerset Medical Center in Somerville, told The Star-Ledger.
New Jersey's 86 acute-care hospitals can apply for state grants to test flu pandemic readiness.
That includes "surge capacity," the ability to quickly accommodate more patients, which requires space, staff and equipment.
"There is a particular problem with pandemic flu because this type of illness requires intensive care beds and mechanical ventilation, and those resources in hospitals are extremely tight," Richard Waldhorn, a professor of medicine at Georgetown University told the newspaper.
Among the facilities seeking grants is Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.
"We have almost 600 patients in the hospital today. We would be able to increase that number by another 300 to 400 if we are experiencing surge," said the hospital's president and CEO, Clifton Lacy, a former state health commissioner.
The hospital has an 18,000-foot courtyard where patients could be placed, while University Hospital in Newark would deploy tents if it ran out of emergency space.
http://www.wnbc.com/health/5181160/detail.html
Seeing your post got me thinking about Newark Airport. The first time I landed there I thought I was no longer in America. I heard just about every language being spoken. (It would be easy for diseases to be brought in there from other countries and instantly infect a lot of people!)