York Hospital reveals only one of 15 suspected sufferers of swine flu actually had disease (From York Press)
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York Hospital reveals only one of 15 suspected sufferers of swine flu actually had disease
9:13am Wednesday 29th July 2009 in Swine flu
York Hospital
FIFTEEN patients have been admitted to York Hospital with suspected swine flu – but tests have shown only one actually had the disease.
A spokeswoman said patients who were admitted while clinically presumed to have the illness were all then given a test to ascertain whether swine flu was to blame.
The tests had come back negative for 14 patients, indicating that their ill health had some other cause, and no such patients had needed critical care.
Last week, the spokeswoman had said a small number of procedures had had to be postponed, following the admission of a small number of patients with suspected swine flu, all of whom had underlying health conditions.
She said yesterday that no more postponements of procedures had been necessary as yet.
Meanwhile, NHS North Yorkshire and York yesterday stepped up the number of points where antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu can be collected.
A spokesman said the number was rising from 38 to 42, thanks to an additional four daytime collection points.
There were now 34 daytime points and eight out-of-hours collection centres.
He said the locations of the collection points could not be revealed, because the trust did not want to encourage people to simply turn up and demand an antiviral without getting prior authorisation from their doctor or the new swine flu helpline or website.
The Conservative Party has released new Department for Health figures showing that the trust has one of the largest number of collection points in the country. A party spokesman said it was one of only ten across the country with more than 30 such centres. The trust spokesman said it had so many because it was the largest geographical area.
Comments(14)
petethefeet
says...
9:24am Wed 29 Jul 09
whereareyoubruce
says...
9:29am Wed 29 Jul 09
I have been visiting someone in hospital for the last two weeks. I have noticed that EVERYBODY thoroughly cleans their hands using one of the numerous hand wash dispensers available. For various reasons over the years I have been a regular visitor to the hospital and even up to a few months ago I noticed that not many people or nurses used the hand cleaner. Now all I hear is swine flu, germs, stomach upsets etc and I think because everybody is paranoid about catching swine flu they are really scrubbing their hands etc. This must be for the good and hope that this hand wash continues. It must be very important to stop the spread of the previous big panic MRSA. It would be interesting for the hospital to publish some figures about infection control to see if in general the spread of various infections has dropped. They maybe could have a push to keep up this heightened awareness and effort to avoid contamination and spreading of illness.
ouseboy
says...
9:39am Wed 29 Jul 09
Every winter thousands die from 'ordinary' flu in the UK and nobody bats an eyelid !!!
More common sense needed !!!
LordSlackBladder-lll
says...
10:34am Wed 29 Jul 09
HeworthSapper
says...
10:47am Wed 29 Jul 09
It's all media hype!
Stressed Out
says...
11:00am Wed 29 Jul 09
Henry Swanson
says...
11:01am Wed 29 Jul 09
Mullarkian
says...
11:27am Wed 29 Jul 09
I couldn't agree more.
It's been hyped up out of all proportion by the medical profession, media and government.
Alucard
says...
12:43pm Wed 29 Jul 09
Swine flu = even worse
Man flu = end of the world
invisibleman
says...
12:50pm Wed 29 Jul 09
Stressed Out wrote:Try telling the parents of the healthy little girl who died of swine flu that it is all hype. I am sure they would draw so much comfort from your comments
I quite agree, its all media hype led by our incompetent government. The radio yesterday had a phone in whereby callers were freely admitting falsifying sysptems to get tamiflu, one even admitted to using sevral names and selling tablets on at a car boot sale. The gov then uses these figures to frighten us all. Where has all the common sense gone from this country.
HeworthSapper
says...
1:16pm Wed 29 Jul 09
The Official publication 'Summary of flu immunisation policy' (3 October 2004):
'13,000 deaths in 1993 were attributed to flu.'
consumer
says...
1:34pm Wed 29 Jul 09
again
says...
6:13pm Wed 29 Jul 09
consumer wrote:Couldn't they just say there is no news today and play some music?
Notice how swine flu disapperared as an issue while the scandal about MPs' expenses was in the news? They have to fill 24-hour news channels with something.
coblimeyhecythump says...
9:23am Wed 29 Jul 09