# 3474
Earlier this week I spoke to a local physician who told me, quite proudly, that he was keeping up with the CDC’s and State of Florida’s Swine flu information, and that he really didn’t see that it was having much of an impact.
Curious, I asked him if he was aware that flu cases were approaching the epidemic threshold in the UK in the middle of summer, that many hospitals there are near 100% census at what should be their slow time of the year, and that doctors there were seriously getting slammed.
Really? He was, to say the least, a bit surprised.
That’s the problem, of course. Most doctors don’t have time to follow the news in depth, and they are only going by the official CDC numbers, and the cases they are currently dealing with.
Today, in the Telegraph, we get a long and illuminating account of the difficulties that the NHS (National Health Service) is running into in the UK.
Some leading doctors are calling for emergency measures to go into place now, such as cutting back on routine surgeries and preventative care, in order to allow them to deal with the pandemic flu.
Read the entire article. The anecdotal reports about the problems with the flu help lines are also of interest.
Swine flu: routine operations must be put on hold, say leading doctors
Routine operations must be put on hold so that the NHS can cope with the swine flu crisis, doctors' leaders have warned.
By David Harrison and Patrick Sawer
Published: 9:00PM BST 11 Jul 2009Dr Peter Holden, a member of the British Medical Association's general practitioners committee, said that the Government should implement emergency plans to deal with a swine flu pandemic "with immediate effect".
"The Government must push the button now" he said. "Forward planning is vital. We will have to forget about hitting targets for waiting lists.
"Routine operations and preventive treatment will have to take second place."
Dr Holden, who played a key role in drawing up the contingency plans, said the NHS workforce should be allowed to concentrate on getting ready for a "second wave" of swine flu.
He said the NHS was already under strain and the workload for GPs and other NHS staff in the worst-hit areas was becoming "unsustainable".
"We do not want the troops to be exhausted before the start of what could be a very significant stage in the campaign," he said.
Dr Holden was speaking after the death toll from the virus rose to 15 when a middle-aged man died after nine days in hospital in Basildon, Essex. It was the first death in the UK of someone without underlying health problems.
More than 9,700 people in the UK are known to have caught the disease, but the real figure is believed to be much higher.
The Government has warned that the number of swine flu cases could soar to 100,000 a day by the end of next month and estimated that the virus could eventually affect up to 50 per cent of the population.
