Local shelters help homeless fighting flu
With permission from a doctor or staff, many of the ill allowed to remain inside during chilly days
A man named Joe rested in the semi-darkness of the bunk-lined back rooms at the Interfaith Community Shelter on Friday, fighting the chills, body aches and sore throat that had crept up on him a few days before.
“I stayed here one night, and I could barely get up the next day,” he said.
Joe, who declined to give his last name, asked a friend to take him to a doctor and, after being diagnosed, got a note to present to the shelter’s staff. With that piece of paper, he can sleep at Interfaith during the daytime, even as the majority of shelter guests are ushered outside in the morning and can’t return until the facility reopens in the evening.
Without the bed, Joe might have been spending his days outside in the cold.
Interfaith and other shelters around town are offering medical respite beds for the homeless — giving them a place to stay off their feet while they try to recover from surgeries, sicknesses or other ailments.
For Joe, 35, the chance to recover from the flu virus that is sweeping Northern New Mexico is a gift.
“Mostly, eating hot food and having somewhere to rest are the two biggest things,” he said. “Somewhere to stay warm really helps the other stress factors.”
Against the backdrop of flu that has spread throughout the country, there are a variety of groups in town that try to address the health needs of the homeless when they are at their most fragile.
Health Care for the Homeless, a La Familia Medical Center clinic on Cerrillos Road, offers walk-in appointments, has staff members visit different organizations that work with the homeless a few times a week and also provides a van that can pick people up from places like the Interfaith Community Shelter on Cerrillos Road.
“We take people as they are when they come to the door. Mental health issues, substance abuse issues, whatever,” said Elizabeth Reynolds, director of Health Care for the Homeless. “That’s why we’re here. We understand that.”
Reynolds said she believes the clinic has been busier this year than in past winters. While part of that is a “subtle increase” in flu cases, she said, there are other illnesses, such as upper-respiratory infections, going around.
Still, she said, “we’re not bombarded too badly.”
Joe Jordan-Berenis, director of the Interfaith Community Shelter, said he thinks this flu season has hit harder than others. He and many of his staff, as well as shelter guests, have picked up a lingering illness.
“I think it has been a hard year. It’s hard for me to decipher between colds and the flu, but people are dealing with health issues,” Jordan-Berenis said. “I think this year has been a little bit unusual.”
Doctors from the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention said during a teleconference on Friday that the flu is widespread across the United States.
“What we’re seeing is the season has started early, and it’s probably peaking right now,” CDC influenza expert Dr. Dan Jernigan said.
The dominant strain of the flu this year, called H3N2, is associated with more severe illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths than other strains. And while the flu vaccine was only marginally effective against that strain, possibly as low as 10 percent, CDC doctors say getting a flu shot is still the best protection against most strains of influenza as the season goes on.
Cases of flu in New Mexico spiked at the end of December, according to the state Department of Health, with the number of positive tests for influenza doubling at the start of 2018.
The most recent data from the department, which covers the first week of the new year, show the flu is spiking at the moment, but the rate of influenzalike illnesses has hit a plateau — for now — showing up in around 5 percent of all patients who are reporting to department monitoring sites.
The current rate of the flu is more than double what it was in early 2017, when it hovered around 2 percent. However, it’s not quite as severe as other recent flu seasons, some of which had jumped to 6 percent or 7 percent by this time of the year.
The high rates of flu have created a hectic environment for Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, which has been operating near or at capacity thanks to an influx of flu cases over the last month. When the hospital is at capacity, spokesman Arturo Delgado said, the facility doesn’t take transfer patients from other medical institutions. Patients with emergency needs, however, are still treated.
As of Friday, Delgado said the hospital had seen nearly 200 confirmed cases of the flu.
“It is out of the ordinary,” Christus St. Vincent Chief Operating Officer Lillian Montoya said.
Ben Myler, a supervisor for the St. Elizabeth Men’s Emergency Shelter on Alarid Street, agrees. He’s been with the shelter for four winters and said this is the worst flu season staff and clients have experienced.
The men’s shelter at St. Elizabeth, like Interfaith, allows clients to take medical respite during the daytime with notice from a doctor or permission from a case manager.
Of the shelter’s 28 beds, Myler estimates about a dozen recently have been filled with sick patients getting rest during the day.
“I’m really glad we do it. If someone is out walking around in the cold all day, there’s really no chance of them overcoming anything they’re dealing with medically,” Myler said.
“Where most people who have housing get to go home and take a day off work and lay in bed to recover,” he said, “most of our clients don’t have that in any way unless they have a bed at a shelter and a place to come and relax.”