Doctors at our state’s children’s hospitals say they’re scared because their emergency rooms are already full beyond capacity with more flu and likely COVID coming on top of RSV.
The emergency room at Seattle Children’s is at 100% capacity 24-hours a day and 300% in the evenings, says emergency medical director, Doctor Tony Woodward, who says it’s a long wait for patients not in a dire emergency. “And we’re seeing our service levels drop, our ‘left without being seens’ increasing,” Doctor Woodward says, “because people are unwilling to wait for a long time. It’s huge volumes, huge surges, the viruses.”
The situation is similar at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma and Providence Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital in Spokane. The hospitals are doing all they can to maximize space and staffing and working with the Washington Medical Coordination Center to balance patient loads.
Meanwhile, Woodward says prevention is key including keeping sick kids away from other kids, because “we stopped masking, so we know that in school…now everybody’s getting sick, and it’s not only the kids in school, it’s the people at home.”
That’s why Woodward reminds you that not only is masking still a good idea, but that viruses live on hard surfaces, so cleaning is another prevention measure.
Even though the ERs are overflowing, the doctors say if you really have an emergency, don’t hesitate to go to the ER, but the doctors also say with all that masking during the pandemic, we avoided viruses like flu, so they say a lot of newer parents just don’t have experience with sick kids, which they say makes it understandable that they feel the need to rush their kids to the ER with RSV going around. Instead, they suggest that when your kids start getting sick, try calling an advice nurse or doing a tele-medicine appointment. They say they can tell from that if you really need to come to the ER.
You can watch the entire Washington State Hospital Association briefing with Children’s hospital doctors in the video below:
