Qld flu cases running at almost three times five-year average

Hundreds of Queenslanders have already been admitted to public hospitals for the flu this year, including about 50 requiring intensive care, triggering pleas for people to protect themselves by getting vaccinated.

HUNDREDS of Queenslanders have already been admitted to public hospitals for the flu this year, including about 50 requiring intensive care, triggering pleas for people to protect themselves by getting vaccinated.

For the first time this year, changes to regulations will allow Queenslanders aged 16 and older to be vaccinated against the potentially deadly virus at pharmacies.

HOSPITALS STILL FULL BUT ‘NOT IN CRISIS’

TOP MEDIC HITS OUT AT ‘INHUMAN’ TREATMENT

Federal Government figures show more than 6600 cases of laboratory confirmed flu in Queensland so far this year — about double the numbers for the same time last year and almost three times the five-year average.

Queensland Chief Health Officer Jeannette Young said most cases this year had been influenza A, the strain associated with the worst outcomes.

As Queensland Health rolls out free flu vaccinations to general practitioners across the state, Griffith University influenza expert Paul Van Buynder advised pregnant women, children and healthy adults to get the jab as soon as possible.

But he said Queenslanders with chronic illnesses and people aged 65 and older should ideally wait until next month because of concerns the vaccine’s effectiveness waned over time in those groups.

“We don’t want them to be vaccinated too early,” he said.

Flu season usually peaks in August-September.

Dr Van Buynder said this year’s free flu jab contained four strains of the highly contagious virus, except for Queenslanders aged 65 and older, who would receive a specially formulated vaccine containing three strains.

“It’s got a special booster product in it which makes it work better,” he explained.

The flu was partially blamed for 10 southeast Queensland public hospitals reaching capacity last week, prompting Dr Young to bring the state’s flu strategies forward by weeks, including paying for extra beds at private hospitals.

She said yesterday 30 extra beds were already open for public flu patients at Mater Private hospitals in South Brisbane, Springfield and Redland.

As health authorities monitor the early flu epidemic in the state, they are also concerned about measles cases with 10 recorded in Queensland so far this year compared to 14 for the whole of 2018.

Queensland Health’s acting communicable diseases branch medical director Jonathan Malo called for people born after 1965 to make sure they had received two doses of the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, particularly if they were considering overseas travel.

Dr Malo said he was concerned that because measles was much less common than it was last century, Queenslanders may not be aware of how serious it could be.

Measles complications can include pneumonia and encephalitis, inflammation of the brain, which can be deadly.

OVERNIGHT

NEW Queensland Health figures show flu cases are running at almost three times the five-year average on the eve of a top-level meeting to discuss emergency department capacity.

More than 6500 flu diagnoses have been reported in Queensland so far this year — 2.9 times the mean for the same period between 2014-18.

Australasian College for Emergency Medicine president, Dr Simon Judkins.

The unseasonal flu epidemic contributed to every adult public hospital emergency department in southeast Queensland reaching capacity last week.

Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles will meet the head of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine president Simon Judkins in Brisbane on Thursday to discuss pressures on the state’s public hospitals.

Dr Judkins will call on Mr Miles to demand regular reports on patients having to wait longer than 24 hours in hospital EDs.

“We really want to generate those reports so that the minister can see week by week, or even day by day, what’s going on at the coal face,” Dr Judkins said.

“He needs the information so he knows how his hospitals are performing. I’m sure any minister wouldn’t like the idea that patients are spending days in an ED.”

Dr Judkins is particularly concerned about mental health patients having to wait longer than 12 hours in an emergency department before being admitted to hospital.

When a hospital psychiatric admission is required, he said processes: “need to be timely and streamlined so that acutely unwell people can access an appropriate inpatient bed any time of the day or any day of the week”.

He said that ideally, mental health care workers should be based in hospital EDs 24 hours a day.

“There should be a therapeutic area in the ED so that mental health patients are not sitting in hallways. They should be in areas where they feel safe and secure and there’s a mental health worker there to greet them as opposed to five hours later.

“Once a decision has been made that a person needs inpatient care, they should be able to access that care within a reasonable time frame as opposed to three days later.”