Corner Brook -
The second wave of swine flu may be winding down in the western region.
Dr. Minnie Wasmeier, Western Health's chief operating officer for secondary services, said the number of possible cases in the region is steadily dropping.
Instead of the peak of 268 a day going through the now-closed flu assessment centre at the former Regina High School, there are between eight and 12 people with flu-like illness going through the emergency department at Western Memorial Regional Hospital. Because the emergency room and doctors' offices can handle the traffic, the decision was made Friday to close the centre as of Sunday evening.
"What a change," Wasmeier said. "From a high of 268 down to eight, that's down to normal flu season at this time of the year. That can be handled by the doctors' offices and outpatients department."
As of 8 a.m. Monday morning, there were 10 people in Western Health hospitals with influenza-like illness, two of them were in intensive care and one of them was on a ventilator.
In a Nov. 17 story in The Western Star, Dr. Ken Jenkins, Western Health's vice-president of medical services, said the flu assessment centre was seeing an average of 25 a day on Nov. 16 and as of 8 a.m. that day there were 22 in hospital, five people in intensive care and two on ventilators. That day elective surgery resumed at Western Memorial Regional Hospital with the opening of two operating rooms.
Monday morning all four operating rooms were open at the regional hospital in Corner Brook.
"We're starting to get back to normal," Wasmeier said.
Visitor restrictions put in place Oct. 25 will remain in force for the time being, though. That's being discussed at meetings twice a week.
When enough of the illness has subsided, the visitation restrictions will be lifted.
While the numbers are down and the trend seems to be downward, but she's wary of calling the second wave of the flu over.
"We're always afraid when we try to guess a disease over which we have no control," she said. "All the signs are pointing to that we are getting through the second wave. The numbers in our flu assessment centre are enough to close it now, our four ORs are open, those are all positive signs."
