U.S. hospitals weathering flu pandemic so far

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Last May, an influx of children with flu symptoms and their worried families flooded the emergency department of Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, swelling the normal patient load from 150 a day to 400 and leaving a net loss for the month of $325,000.

Patient volumes at the not-for-profit hospital are beginning to rise once again as a second wave of the H1N1 flu pandemic -- which has killed 1,000 Americans and more than 5,700 people globally -- works its way through the Northern Hemisphere.

"At this point in the year, we would expect to see around 180 patients a day. We're seeing around 250 patients a day," Donald Camp, an administrator at the hospital, said.

"We are watching our volumes closely, but to date we have weathered this all right," Camp said in a phone interview.

Wall Street analysts and academic experts say so far the H1N1 pandemic has had a mild impact on hospitals in the United States, and will likely fall far short of the most dire predictions of hospitals chock full of patients admitted with severe cases of flu.

Dr. Eric Toner of Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center said a severe flu pandemic like the one in 1918 could cost U.S. hospitals $3.9 billion, but he expects this pandemic to have far less impact.

"So far, it has not been overwhelming. Just a stretch," Toner said in a telephone interview.

HOSPITALS WORRIED

A report by Trust for America's Health last month suggested as many as 15 states could run out of hospital beds and 12 more could fill 75 percent of their beds with swine flu sufferers if 35 percent of Americans catch the virus.

Lazard Capital Markets analyst Thomas Gallucci, who follows publicly traded hospitals, said based on quarterly results reported so far, that's not happening.

"Although you are seeing more ER activity, you are not seeing really a high percentage of people get admitted to the hospital," he said.

But manufacturing problems that have slowed distribution of swine flu vaccines and steadily rising emergency department volumes do have hospitals worried.

"Already, with this increase in volume we have implemented some additional staffing plans for our nurses. We've brought in additional housekeepers. We've added additional security for crowd control," Mary Margaret Crulcich, safety officer at Children's Memorial, said in a telephone interview.

Scott Rosenstein, a global health analyst at Eurasia Group in New York, said U.S. hospitals in general are operating at surge capacity, and a lot will depend on the government's ability to resolve problems delivering both H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines.

Federal health officials said this week that states and counties will be struggling to vaccinate people against the swine flu pandemic well into December and January -- long after the first peak of the virus in the United States.