Flu victims get artificial lungs

FLU has been so severe this year that many patients have needed treatment with artificial lungs to keep them alive.

Otherwise healthy adults have needed the highest level of intensive care after being hospitalised with the virus this winter, MPs were told yesterday.

Many had been given the flu jab – which is only effective in half of patients. This is combined with the worst norovirus levels in five years, which has seen 75,000 beds taken out of service as a result.

Dr Sue Crossland, president elect of the Society for Acute Medicine, told the Science and Technology Committee, that she had seen a near seven-fold increase in flu patients this year. Some needed extracorporeal membrane oxygenation treatment – used to pump and oxygenate blood outside the body so the heart and lungs can rest.

A King’s Fund report warned that some of the sickest patients were being failed when it came to A&E waiting times despite ‘heroic efforts of NHS staff’.