'The ones that stick in your head': The tragedy of the flu

A TOOWOOMBA Hospital doctor has shared just what it’s like to treat patients with the flu in intensive care.

Dr Adam Visser. . Picture: Kevin Farmer

A TOOWOOMBA Hospital doctor has shared just what it's like to treat patients with the flu in intensive care.

Critical care director Dr Adam Visser told Qld Health that at any one time during flu season the unit could have five or six critically ill patients on ventilators.

 "We're not admitting people to the ICU because their cough is bad or they've got a high fever," he said.

"It's organ failure, an inability to breathe, things like that, that see people admitted to our ward.

"We certainly will get a fair bit busier during winter, when we'll have more respiratory patients with different respiratory viruses. Some of that is influenza. 

"The difference with influenza is people who do end up in intensive care tend to be there for longer."

Dr Visser said the patient they saw weren't just the elderly and already sick, but young people as well. 

"Those are the ones who stick in your head," he said. 

"It's the 30-year-old mothers, or the pregnant people, or the people like myself who would normally be completely healthy, normal people going about their business one day, who are struck down by it.

"In Toowoomba, which is a relatively small unit, we see one or two of those patients every year."

He encouraged everyone to get a flu shot.

Originally published as 'The ones that stick in your head': The tragedy of the flu