Merced hospitals are experiencing an unusually high number of patients with the flu and respiratory viruses this fall.
The emergency waiting room at Mercy Hospital has been closed to the public in order to make room for a surge in cases that doctors there are struggling to understand.
“For some reason this year it’s really bad,” said Mandy Hall, nursing director for emergency services at Mercy Hospital.
The recent surge of patients is around double what healthcare workers normally see this type of year. And it’s affecting health facilities across the area, including Valley Children’s Hospital near Fresno, where almost a third of tests for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are coming back positive. It’s usually less than 10 percent in a normal year. Mercy had to lend them cribs in order to deal with the increase.
RSV is especially common among infants and young kids. RSV symptoms are similar to that of the common cold, but it can be dangerous for infants and older people. It’s also very contagious. The CDC predicted a heavy season for the virus, and Hall said the hospital started seeing numbers rise before the cold weather even arrived.
“We knew it was going to be a long season. But we honestly don’t know why we’re seeing it at this level,” she said. “It’s just a phenomenon that has come up all of a sudden.”
Mercy doesn’t have a dedicated pediatrics unit, so all they can do is stabilize patients before sending them to other hospitals. Prior to the recent surge, Mercy was seeing about 190 patients a day. Recently that number has been around 250. It forced the hospital to close the emergency room lobby to the public in order to make room for more patients as well as decrease the spread of the virus. Some are still being allowed in to see patients, such as minors and patient advocates.
“You can imagine how crowded it is here and how creative we’re having to be to see all the patients,” said Hall. “We don’t have physical space, because all of our space is being used for patient care. We’re seeing patients in hallways.”