Flu Patients Inundating Southland ERs

Maureen Holland, 51, is still recovering from a flu that knocked everyone in her Woodland Hills house off their feet. A deep cough still rattles her chest.

Her daughter Sami, 17, began vomiting on Dec. 7. Cough, fever and headaches soon followed. Within days, both parents began coughing. By Dec. 12, Kirk Holland, Sami’s father, had so much trouble breathing that the family went to the emergency room at West Hills Hospital.

“My son’s away at college, so he didn’t get it,” said Maureen Holland. “He’s lucky.”

All over Southern California, the flu is becoming a family affair -- not to mention an office and a school affair. Patients with flu-like symptoms -- coughs, fevers and aches -- are streaming into hospitals across the region, filling some to the point that they are turning away ambulances much of the time.

The bug spread sooner and more rapidly in Northern California this year -- starting near Sacramento. But now the Southland is catching up.

Los Angeles County’s Emergency Medical Services Agency reported that more ambulances were diverted from full emergency rooms in the first two weeks of December than in the entire month of November. The rate is up 16% from this time last year.

“Sixteen doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s a lot if you consider that in the month of November we had 10,000 hours of diversion among 81 hospitals receiving 911 calls,” said Carol Gunter, the agency’s acting director.

“The 100% increase in the last two weeks means it’s probably the flu,” Gunter said.

Since last weekend, St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood has been inundated with patients with flu symptoms, said Dr. S. Daniel Higgins, president of the hospital’s emergency medical group. From Friday to Sunday last weekend, St. Francis saw more than 200 people a day, about 40 more than usual for this time of year.

On Wednesday he noted, “Wednesday is our slowest day and, at 11:40 a.m., we have 31 patients waiting.”

At Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the emergency room began buzzing with an unusual number of people about 10 days ago, said Dr. Joel Geiderman, co-chairman of the emergency department. Now it is the busiest it has been in three years, he said.

In San Diego County, 24% of the patients in hospital emergency departments were reporting flu symptoms last week, up from 18% the previous week.

“The highest percentage of patients reporting flu-like illness in recent years was 24% in 1999 to 2000,” Nancy Bowen, the county’s public health officer, said in a news release.

In the last two weeks, the emergency department at UC San Diego Medical Center has seen 20% more patients than usual, with most of the increase seemingly related to flu, said Dr. David Guss, who heads the department. “We probably see as many as 10 to 15 cases of flu or flu-related illness a day,” Guss said. On Wednesday, the county reported its fourth flu-related death, an 88-year-old woman who passed away the day before.

Orange County emergency rooms were very busy last week through the past weekend as well, said Bruce Haynes, medical director for the county’s emergency medical services.

Some experts warn against going to emergency rooms unnecessarily -- lest you catch the flu there.

Several hospitals have for the first time tightened visiting policies to curb its spread on the premises. This week, Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach and Downey Regional Medical Center barred children under 12 from visiting patients or entering patient-care areas.

“The restriction is based on the desire to prevent kids from getting sick,” said Harriett Pitt, an epidemiologist at Long Beach Memorial. “We need to be proactive in protecting the community.”

Although no one can say how bad the flu season ultimately will be, doctors believe it is just getting into gear. “I don’t think we’ve peaked yet,” said Dr. Laurene Mascola, chief of the county’s Acute Communicable Disease Control Program.

But Mascola warned against panic. “It’s not an epidemic year or a pandemic year, it’s a heavier-than-usual flu year,” she said.

County officials said they could not yet count the number of people who have died from the flu in Los Angeles because influenza is not an illness doctors are required to report, and death certificates have not yet been tallied. In general, Mascola said, about 1,000 a year die because of the flu or its complications in Los Angeles County. So far, a handful of county doctors have called her on their own to report flu deaths, she said.

The county is trying to get more of the flu vaccine, which is in low supply after a run fueled by panicked parents and the worried well. Los Angeles County health officials said they expect to receive at least 7,000 more doses from the state.

Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California hospitals have already given out 725,000 shots this year, a record number, and expect to run out by the weekend, spokesman Jim Anderson said.

More and more students are missing school in Los Angeles because of the flu, said Sue Rue, the communicable disease control nurse for the Los Angeles Unified School District. “It seems like the numbers are climbing,” said Rue, who estimated the absentee rate at about 10% on average.

Alta Loma Elementary School in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles reported Wednesday that 15% of the student body was absent because of illness.

The symptoms -- including vomiting, nausea and high fever -- seem worse this year, Rue said. Kids and adults have been running fevers as high as 104 degrees. “It’s very unusual,” she said.

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Times staff writer Cara Mia DiMassa contributed to this report.