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A Douglas County health official hopes the H1N1 flu is easing off in the Omaha area after hitting a peak in October.
Dr. Anne O’Keefe, the county’s senior epidemiologist, said Friday that school absenteeism declined this week.
But H1N1 flu continues to have a significant presence in the region. The Nebraska Medical Center, seeking to ease emergency room pressure, will open a flu treatment clinic Sunday for people who are worried about their flu symptoms. The clinic will continue to see patients indefinitely.
The special area, in the medical center’s employee health clinic, will be just inside the front door of Clarkson Tower at 42nd and Dewey Streets.
It will be available from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays.
The clinic won’t administer H1N1 flu vaccinations at this time.
Two more H1N1-related deaths were reported Friday in Nebraska, one in Adams County and the other in Seward County. Three more were reported in Iowa, including one in Woodbury County in the northwest part of the state. Iowa has recorded 14 H1N1 deaths, Nebraska 10.
O’Keefe said school absenteeism in Douglas County declined to 2.6 percent this week from 2.9 percent last week and 4.7 percent in mid-October.
“I’m hopeful that we might be coming out of a peak with our H1N1 right now,” O’Keefe said. “That doesn’t mean that we’re out of the woods.”
Dr. Joann Schaefer, the chief medical officer in Nebraska, said the percentage of Nebraska hospital patients who were admitted because of flu symptoms this week hit a 2009 record of 11.4 percent, up from 9.9 percent the week before.
“We haven’t heard any distress calls from hospitals yet,” Schaefer said. “It’s just too early to call if this is truly going to plateau or not. … We’re holding our breath a little bit.”
Other Douglas County numbers provided by O’Keefe give a mixed assessment of the community’s fight with the flu. In the week ending Oct. 31 (the most recent data available for this measure), 161 people were hospitalized in Douglas County with flu symptoms, and 22 were put on ventilators to help them breathe.
The week before, 192 were hospitalized and 12 were on ventilators. O’Keefe said the increase in patients on ventilators may be because some smaller hospitals in the region send severe cases to Omaha hospitals.
The Nebraska Medical Center’s emergency room has been crowded over the last few weeks, largely with patients who are concerned about their flu symptoms. The clinic will provide a place for those patients and keep the emergency room open to others, said Paul Baltes, a Medical Center spokesman.
He said billing at the flu clinic will be handled similarly to a visit to the doctor’s office. A patient should show his insurance card and provide the co-pay; the insurance company will be billed. Patients will not be turned away if unable to pay, Baltes said.
Patients who report to the emergency room with flu symptoms will be escorted by hospital personnel to the flu clinic, unless they are extremely ill, Baltes said. The clinic will be staffed with physicians, nurses and administrative support employees.
Contact the writer:
444-1123, rick.ruggles@owh.com
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