CHEO has issued an urgent plea for help to family doctors as
flu season continues to bring overwhelming numbers of sick children
to the pediatric hospital, many of whom are testing positive for influenza.
In a letter to family doctors in the region, Dr. Vera Etches,
CHEO’s
president and CEO, said the early and intense start to flu season “has led to unprecedented volumes in the emergency department.
“These numbers have stretched our capacity to the limit, requiring interventions to address lineups at triage, with staff relying on overflow spaces to safely care for young patients,” wrote Etches.
She asked doctors if they could extend their hours to make additional room for urgent appointments for children with respiratory symptoms, saying it would help with demand at the hospital.
She also asked doctors to consider working evening and weekend shifts at the Kids Come First Care Clinic at CHEO, saying “your help would make a meaningful difference for children and families across our region.” The clinic sees children in need of medical attention who don’t need to be in the emergency department.
Karen Macaulay, vice-president of acute care services at CHEO, said it is asking physicians to help with the clinic, located at CHEO, so it can extend its hours until 10 p.m. to send more children there who don’t require emergency care.
The direct plea to family doctors is both unusual and a sign of the severity of the influenza season, especially for young children.
Earlier, CHEO said it was seeing a huge spike in cases compared to a year ago. In November, the children’s hospital saw eight times as many children test positive for influenza compared to a year ago and twice as many children requiring hospitalization.
CHEO also said the majority of children being seen in emergency had not been vaccinated against the flu.
Macaulay said the hospital is still seeing extremely high numbers in emergency and of children needing hospitalization for flu and other respiratory illnesses. Emergency is seeing about 250 children a day. She said it was built for 150. CHEO continues to hospitalize about twice as many children as it did at this time last year, she said.
The plea for additional help comes as calls for people to get vaccinated are growing.
Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore sent a memo to public health units, long-term care and retirement home operators and other health partners to ramp up influenza vaccination efforts.
So far, he said, the dominant strain in Ontario has been influenza A (H3N2) subclade K. That is a new subclade, or variant, that has been identified in other countries that have seen severe influenza seasons. That includes Japan, where children were hit severely by the flu, which caused more than 5,000 schools to close and resulted in hundreds of deaths.
The rise of subclade K means this year’s influenza vaccine is not a perfect match for the dominant circulating strain, but Moore said vaccines still offer some level of immunity against strains that are not a perfect match and typically provide cross-protection against other strains. He said early vaccine effectiveness studies from the UK suggest it offers moderate protection against H3N2 as well as protection against two other strains — H1N1 and influenza B.
“Vaccination against influenza remains the most effective measure to prevent severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths,” he said.
Moore encouraged health professionals to offer COVID and RSV vaccines as well.
Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth, one of the Ottawa family doctors who received the letter from CHEO, said she has given flu shots to all of her patients who wanted one — young and old.
But she said the message about the flu shot being a mismatch with this year’s vaccine has undermined the ability to get more people vaccinated.
“Even if it is not a perfect match, it is helpful, and that is the message people need to hear.”
She said her office has been seeing cases of influenza, RSV and strep throat, among other things.
“We are just seeing a lot of sick kids.”
Ottawa Public Health is reporting that flu cases in the city are very high and continuing to rise, with more than 36 per cent of those tested positive for influenza.
CHEO has information about when to go to emergency, and where to find other alternatives when a trip to emergency is not necessary.
www.cheo.on.ca/en/visiting-cheo/where-to-go.aspx
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