Global 'Flu Pandemic

As a doctor who spends a lot of time looking after patients on life-support in the Critical Care Unit, I have a vested interest in paying close attention to the reports of the spread of the “Swine ‘Flu” epidemic.

From the moment the story broke on Saturday morning, we’ve had people from the Department of Health and the Health Protection Agency on the telly and radio telling us that “the UK is the best prepared country in the world to deal with a pandemic.”

I really hope that this is true and our preparation is sound, but the thing that’s worrying me is that no one seems to be telling me or my colleagues what the plan is. There doesn’t seem to be any advice about how we actually treat someone who becomes critically ill with swine flu. We haven’t been told what type of protective measures we should take to prevent the in-hospital spread of this flu or how to protect ourselves from it. Should we use special masks? If so, where do we get them from? What should the isolation policy be? What do we do with the rest of the inpatients? Should we come in to work if we start to feel a bit rough? The hospital is pretty much constantly full anyway, so what happens when we get a big influx of admissions with ‘flu? What happens when we run out of beds? What happens when the staff start getting ill?

These are all questions that we’ve been given no official guidance on. Obviously, we’ll do the best we can and try to deal with situations to the best of our ability, but it would be nice to know what sort of special measures or help is available to us.

The thing that’s really worrying me is that nobody in the hospital seems to know the answers to these questions either. The consultants don’t know, the critical care sisters don’t know, and word is that the chief executive only has a sketchy idea about how manage an outbreak in this town.

Reading between the lines, what I gather from the radio is that there seems to be some sort of secret masterplan and I really hope that this is the case. I really hope that a whole chain of events swing into action once we have a suspected case come through the hospital doors.

I’m covering intensive care next week and I want to know if there’s anything different I should do from normal if the medical reg bleeps me and says, “I’d like to refer you a 31 year old man for consideration of ventilatory support. He presented with severe ‘flu-like symptoms after returning from a holiday in the USA on Tuesday…”