I have one living grandchild, Katie, the beautiful 15 month old who causes the sun to shine, at least for those of us whom she graces with her innocent laughter that is. When I think about what a severe pandemic would likely mean I try very hard not to think about our Katie. But it is the thoughts of my family that cause me to prepare against the possibility of that severe pandemic, and it is the thoughts of them that inspire my efforts to learn and understand.
Thinking about young children suffering, and some percentage of those children dying, is a difficult thing to think about even when they are not my beautiful granddaughter. However, an article from The Telegraph [UK] has me thinking about these things:
Flu outbreak ‘could affect 750,000 under fives’
Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
An outbreak of pandemic flu could affect 750,000 children under five and leave the NHS unable to cope, the Government has admitted.
Children’s wards would be unable to deal with the sheer numbers of youngsters hit by the virus, because of a lack of beds, a new report shows.
The warning is contained in official draft guidance on how the health service should respond to the threat of a pandemic flu.
Doctors warn that an outbreak could kill up to 750,000 Britons.
I’ve not yet seen the draft guidance that this article draws upon, but it is doesn’t take a tremendous amount of imagination or logical deduction to realize that young children will also be the victims of that future pandemic I concern myself with.
I probably won’t go out of my way to hunt up this report because there are some things that I just don’t like to think about. But not thinking about something now doesn’t mean that I have not already put in thought and energies to protect my granddaughter to the best of my ability against a future pandemic threat.
There are things we can do to protect our children proactively. We can make sure they are kept home and away from others during a pandemic. We can stock basic needs for our family so that we do not have to go out in public during a pandemic and potentially bring infection into our homes exposing our children.
These things are not necessarily easy. One thing requires spending money against a future [possible] need and the other requires we pre-plan against a threat we cannot know. But I ask the question that has been asked around Flublogia any number of times previously: What price would we pay to save a child?
[...]Last month the Government announced that a possible flu pandemic was the greatest threat facing Britain.
A new “risk register” placed an outbreak of pandemic flu above terrorism as the emergency that would have the largest impact.
Around the same time ministers confirmed plans to double stocks of a drug which can lessen the length and severity of flu symptoms.
The flu pandemic of 1918 killed more than 200,000 people in Britain and up to 40 million across the world.
New guidelines drawn up by the Department of Health warn that if such a disaster did happen again then three quarters of a million young children could be affected.
It warns that the NHS does not have enough children’s beds to cope with demand.
The UK is not likely to build enough hospitals and then staff them with the highly trained and skilled staff that hospitals require in preparation for a future pandemic. Even I would not call for that action to be undertaken. It is also worth mentioning that among those who “follow the flu” it is believed that health care for influenza patients will be either in-home or, at best, in an off-site flu clinic setting. These plans are being looked at and formalized because of the very issue of too few beds for the number of those likely to need them.
I find it frustrating that news items such as this will not register as an important warning to parents (and grandparents) during the time we have been afforded to prepare. Should a pandemic happen before we have solved the vaccine issues parents and grandparents, and the general public for that matter, will all be shouting at once “why weren’t we told“, “why weren’t we warned“.
[...]The guidance, called “Pandemic influenza: Surge capacity and prioritisation in health services”, warns that “given the existing number of beds, it is likely that the demand for paediatric critical care will outstrip capacity”.
The document also reiterates advice that hospitals should effectively become quarantine zones, allowing no visitors, and with one single entry point and heightened security.
Hospitals should also draw up criteria by which to discharge patients as soon as possible, to help them cope with increased demand, the report warns.
It also advises that hospitals could have to cancel all planned operations and divert every possible resource to dealing with the crisis.
Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “This report demonstrates the scale of the challenge that the NHS faces and the absolute importance of having sufficient facilities in place to cope with the crisis that could develop in such circumstances.
The “scale of the challenge” is an understatement when even an active seasonal influenza year will stress our modern health care systems beyond capacity. But it is an impossible goal to have “sufficient facilities” as we define acute care facilities in Western nations. Either the statement was made to score some point against the opposing political party or Mr. Lamb has no genuine appreciation of a severe seasonal epidemic much less a severe pandemic and what does and will happen.
SZ