Britain’s swine flu patients take up hospital beds for kids
By IANSMonday, January 3, 2011
LONDON - Seriously ill babies and children are being forced to travel to different places across Britain as intensive care beds have been allotted to swine flu patients.
Only 15 of the country’s 320 intensive care beds for infants are said to have been made free, according to the Daily Express.
There have been reports that seriously ill children have been moved up to 100 miles (160 km) in ambulances from the West Midlands to Merseyside and London.
Kevin Morris, president of the Paediatric Intensive Care Society and a consultant at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, said: “It is close to not coping. There have been days when you ring around all the units, they are all full and babies and children are having to travel.”
Officials said the flu outbreak may see the National Health Service (NHS) employ up to 20,000 retired doctors.
Meanwhile, doctors are fearing the swine flu outbreak could become an epidemic as pupils return to school at the end of the Christmas break.
Warm classrooms would create a perfect breeding ground for the virus, which has killed 39 people since October 2010, including 11 teenagers.
