The flu season in the Santa Clarita Valley has resulted in a 25 percent increase in patients at the Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital emergency room, according to officials.

This year’s flu season hit the Santa Clarita Valley especially hard, hospital officials said Monday.

“On a typical day, the emergency room sees approximately 200 people a day,” Patrick Moody, the director of marketing and public relations at Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital said. “Right now because of the flu outbreak, we are seeing about 250 patients a day.”

The emergency room at Henry Mayo doesn’t have a capacity limit, Moody explained. So the extra 50 patients every day may slow down emergency room operations while doctors examine flu patients.

“When someone comes into the ER, we examine them to see how quickly we need to provide care to the patient,” Moody said. “So if someone isn’t in need of immediate care, the wait time for them could be a while. However, we will not say the hospital isn’t accepting patients.”
The higher than normal number of patients with the flu is not a surprise, said Dr. Bud Lawrence, the director of the emergency department at Henry Mayo.

“We have had heavy flu seasons in the past,” he said. “2010 was the last time we had a heavy flu outbreak, when the H1N1 virus was out.”
The virus can also take a toll on the doctors treating patients.

“We signed up for this job where we are basically swimming in the flu virus daily,” Lawrence said.

But this year’s high numbers are an anomaly, Lawrence said, and future years will likely not be as bad for patients or doctors.

“In years to come we will see lighter flu seasons, but we will also probably see flu seasons worse than this year,” Lawrence said.
It is too early in the season to say if the flu shot has been effective or not, the doctor explained.

“It is easy to assume the flu shot isn’t working because of how many sick patients there have been,” Lawrence said. “But we won’t know until the flu season is over. After each flu season, data is collected for the past flu season to see how effective the shot was. Last year the data showed that people who got the flu shot were 40 percent less likely to receive the flu than those who didn’t get the flu shot.”

With an influx of people trying to get medication, many pharmacies are out of Tamiflu, which is the most common flu treatment drug prescribed by doctors, Lawrence said. Patients who receive a prescription for the drug should ask for a written prescription instead of an electronic one, so they can go to another pharmacy if needed.

But the best way to prevent the flu is the flu shot, which officials said should be injected as soon as possible.

“I believe it is wise to get the flu shot, because it is the one thing we can do to try to prevent people from getting the flu,” Lawrence said.
While there is no way to completely prevent the flu, he said, those worried can take precautions to prevent themselves from becoming sick.

“Some reasons may be that people who are sick might not be shielding themselves properly from others by going to work while they are sick when they should be staying home resting,” Lawrence said. “It’s also possible that the virus going around this year might be more contagious than other years. Also, people who aren’t sick might not be washing their hands enough.”

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