Dubbo Hospital’s Emergency Department (ED) has been slammed by people with “respiratory complaints” in the week ending Sunday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It counted 217 presentations across the seven-day period, or an average 31 per day.
A spokeswoman for the Western NSW Local Health District said the 217 presentations were “substantially higher than we would expect to see at this time of year”.
On Tuesday she said NSW hospitals traditionally became busy “around August”.
“..however the season seems to have started to peak early, with hospital activity increasing from June,” she said. “In Dubbo there was a spike of hospital presentations for respiratory issues and flu-like symptoms toward the end of June.”
The 217 presentations in the week ending Sunday showed Dubbo was “continuing to experience high levels of demand” in its ED, the health district spokeswoman said.
She also told of 229 confirmed cases of influenza (flu) in the health district in the week ending August 20, compared with 38 in the week ending August 21 in 2016. On August 17 it had received 559 flu notifications this year, up 236 on the 323 recorded in the same period in 2016.
The health district spokeswoman said public hospitals in NSW planned for increased demand on their services each winter and carried out a range of measures to meet it.
“Depending on specific requirements at any given time, this may involve increasing bed numbers, managing transfers between hospitals and managing admission and discharge of patients,” she said. “Surges in emergency department presentations are related not just to influenza but to a range of illnesses, and the system is managing very well despite significant increases in demand, thanks to the hard work of hospital staff.”
The state opposition reports of a record 48,006 cases of flu in NSW so far this year, compared with 35,538 across 2016. Its health spokesman Walt Secord said the flu season was “smashing NSW emergency departments and it is only going to get worse”. He highlighted 291 flu outbreaks in NSW nursing homes when calling on the state government to consider providing free vaccinations to aged care workers.
The health district spokeswoman said its public health unit had “not been notified of any influenza outbreaks in nursing homes in Dubbo”.
“Due to the early start of the flu season it is unlikely that high levels of flu transmission will continue into September, as has been the case in recent years,” she said.
The 100,480 confirmed cases of flu in Australia this year is now approaching the record of 100,590 in 2015.