Pneumonia and organ failure as huge numbers suffer bugs

AN unprecedented number of people have been struck down with flu and are in Birmingham and Solihull hospitals – with many fighting for their lives.

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), which runs the city’s main Queen Elizabeth Hospital, along with Heartlands, Good Hope in Sutton Coldfield and Solihull Hospital, said there were more than 400 patients at its sites with flu.

Some were suffering serious complications including pneumonia and organ failure.

UHB said the number was putting ‘huge pressure’ on hospital capacity with several wards ‘filled with patients experiencing severe flu complications’.

Prof Dhruv Parekh said the Trust had ‘never’ seen such a number of patients admitted with flu.

And he said it was not just the elderly and those usually considered ‘vulnerable’ to the virus but also young people and pregnant women.

Prof Parekh warned unlike Covid, there was no specific treatment for flu ‘other than oxygen and supportive care’. He urged those who had yet to do so to get the flu vaccination which ‘largely prevents the most serious cases’.

Prof Parekh, who is associate professor in acute and critical care and consultant in critical care and respiratory medicine at UHB, said: “We’re seeing a worrying number of patients being admitted to our hospitals and our critical care units with respiratory failure, as a result of flu infection.

“This is the same trend being seen around the country, however we now have 410 inpatients with flu.

“We haven’t seen these numbers of serious flu infections since before the Covid-19 pandemic, and never at this level, so it is very concerning for so many patients to be admitted with flu.

“We do have young patients, pregnant patients, as well as people who would not typically fall into a vulnerable category, experiencing serious complications such as pneumonia and organ failure.

“These patients are now receiving critical treatment, including being sedated and ventilated. “Unlike Covid-19, there are no specific drug treatments for flu, other than oxygen and supportive care when in hospital.

“Therefore prevention by having a flu vaccination is the best thing the public can do.”

The professor’s views were echoed by Margaret Garbett, UHB’s chief nurse and director of Infection prevention and control but she urged people to stay away from hospital unless they had ‘the most severe symptoms’.