Memorial Health Plans For H1N1

(Savannah) Employees at Memorial Health's Microbiology Lab know things could get rough this fall if there's a swine flu outbreak. "This is new. We don't know how it's going to affect us. We just know that if it is a pandemic or if it is a lot of flu out there it's gonna strain our resources,” says Vera Pagan.
The game plan right now, get ready stay ready. Infectious Disease Manager Emmitt Smith says they've already got a disaster plan. "You access current patients to see who can be discharged early. Access the patients that you're admitting to determine what level of care they need, and you coordinate with other hospitals as to their resources and their abilities," says Smith. Faced with the unknown the strategy is education and boosting supplies. Federal Health Officials say later this year as many as 300,000 Americans could be ill enough to require intensive care treatment. "We've done a count of all of our ventilators that we have in use and that we have available to make sure that we have enough. We're looking at a couple of units that don't normally take vents to make sure they can take vents in case we need the over flow capability," says Smith. They'll have an idea of the numbers daily because rapid screening tests for influenza "A" and “B” are done in this lab. H1N1 is a type "A" flu. "Employees here at the Microbiology lab and throughout the hospital are top priority. They realize that come mid October they could be much busier. That's why the hospital has a supply of masks on hand." "They know about infection control technique so they hopefully will keep themselves well so that we at least can stay here working and keep the community up to date on what's going on," says Pagan. The H1N1 vaccine should be available in mid October and will be a two-part vaccination process. The Chatham County Health Department will control who gets the vaccination. High priority groups include pregnant women, health care workers, emergency medical services personnel, and people with chronic conditions.