http://www.themercury.com.au/art ... _tasmania-news.html
DAVID KILLICK
July 21, 2009 05:30pm
TASMANIA is bracing for an explosion in swine flu cases with as many as 100,000 people expected to catch the virus within weeks.
Health authorities said today that as many as 40 could die from the illness and 1000 may need hospital care.
The surge in cases is expected to place unprecedented strain on the state's health system and is likely to see the cancellation of elective surgery.
Health Minister Lara Giddings stopped short of saying the state's health system was up to the crisis.
Acting Director of Public Health Chrissie Pickin said the latest modelling had painted a grim picture, although it was unclear over what time period the crisis would unfold.
"Our predictions at the moment, we think up to 100,000 Tasmanians will get the swine flu over the next few weeks," she said.
"That will lead to an additional thousand hospital admissions over the next few weeks. You can see that is going to put pressure on the health services.
"We are predicting that we think we might see between 20 and 40 deaths. Our main focus is to try to prevent those deaths among Tasmanians in the next six to eight weeks or so."
She said there was no longer any point in testing people displaying flu-like symptoms as almost all had swine flu.
The state has recorded 386 cases of the disease, although the true figure is much higher and will remain unknown as routine testing has been suspended. So far 26 people have been hospitalise and one person has died.
Dr Pickin urged people not to go to the doctor or to a hospital if they thought they had the flu and the symptoms were mild as they are in most cases.
"From today we'll be advising that we only test those in hospital, health care workers or those where we need to find out in an outbreak if this is H1N1 influenza or something else.
"For everybody else we're advising that unless you're in a high risk group or unless you have a severe illness ... then we don't think you need testing and we would advise that you don't need to see a doctor, you can stay at home and look after yourself.
"Obviously if you're in a high risk group of you develop more severe symptoms, then we really want you to seek medical attention early.
"The health service is going to be under pressure - if you don't need to see a doctor then we're advising you don't, so those who do need to see a doctor can get in to see them quickly.
Incident Controller Dr David Boadle said the combination of a surge in cases and the absence of health workers who will be infected would be a double whammy for the health system.
"Our health services see flu every year and it is disruptive. This year it is going to be more about the numbers so there is going to be additional pressures.
"Each of the health services is at the moment considering what responses they can make and what services they can safely curtail or defer to care for people with the flu.
"Elective surgery comes under the microscope every year so it's logical we'll see some cancellations and deferrals of elective surgery.
"Illness among health care workers is going to place another stress on the system and our facilities are looking at that issue in making their plans.
Health Minister Lara Giddings said the department was doing everything it could to prepare for the onslaught but made no promises.
"We will do everything to try to ensure our hospital system does cope through the worst of every pandemic, but we're also monitoring the pressure as it grows on our hospital system and trying to adapt to that pressure as it happens," she said.
"It does mean that we will have to make decisions at some stage around elective surgery for instance and perhaps other services we normally provide that are not urgent critical services.
"We do expect the swine flu virus to hit more Tasmanians that the normal flu virus and of course that has ramifications across the entire community.
"We will see more people not turning up to work because of swine flu, students not being able to go to school, teachers not being able to teach and unfortunately some of our health workers not being able to provide the normal health care they provide on a daily basis as well.
"It is a serious problem and that's why we continue to talk about it." |
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