Cough and fever? — stay at home
Use your ER wisely – advice for patients with flu-like symptoms.
Interior Health.
Interior Health would like to remind everyone that hospital Emergency Departments are designed for the treatment of seriously ill patients and those requiring urgent care. If you go to the Emergency Department when your symptoms aren’t serious, this can result in high volumes and delays in treatment.
Most cases of the H1N1 flu virus in BC have been mild, with people recovering on their own, at home. If you are experiencing flu-like symptoms, particularly if you have a cough and a fever, it’s advised you stay home for 7-10 days or until your symptoms have resolved and you’re able to continue with daily activities. This will help prevent the spread of infection.
Anyone who has concerns about their symptoms, or whose symptoms worsen, should contact their family physician or HealthLink BC at 8-1-1 or log on to their website at www.healthlinkbc.ca. This line is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A nurse will be available take your call and advise you of the appropriate next steps.
The “H1N1 Symptom Checker” has also been added to the HealthLink BC website. Based on the answers, the tool will let you know how soon to seek care by a health professional and/or provide a link on information about H1N1. The tool will not provide a diagnosis for H1N1.
While emergencies are unavoidable, there are some things people can do to avoid unnecessary visits to the hospital:
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Symptoms related to H1N1 are cough, fever, general aches, and fatigue and may last up to 10 days or longer for some people. If you, or a family member, are experiencing these symptoms, stay at home until your symptoms resolve.
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Call HealthLink BC (8-1-1) or log on to their website at www.healthlinkbc.ca if you have questions—this service is available 24 hours a day seven days a week.
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If you need non-urgent care, or are a high-risk patient (i.e., chronic condition, pregnant, immuno-compromized, etc.), contact your family doctor, or the doctor on call for their clinic or practice. Advise them of your symptoms in advance by calling ahead.
- The recommendation for patients with risk factors and mild symptoms is treatment with Tamiflu, started within 48 hours of onset of symptoms (the earlier the better). Please contact your family physician to discuss this treatment if you have risk factors and symptoms.
If you need to come to the hospital, as a patient or visitor, please bring your own reading materials and/or toys for your children to play with while in waiting areas. In order to prevent the spread of infection, these items may not be available in public waiting areas at this time.
For more information on how to protect yourself from influenza, and how to prevent the spread of H1N1 flu virus, visit www.interiorhealth.ca.
Kelowna
November 9, 2009
Interior Health
I hold out hope that your influential paper may reconsider and revise the “official” Tamiflu advice you published above. Similarly to aspirin, which in all its myriad over-the-counter forms is not recommended, precisely because it eliminates fever, which is nature’s design for health restoration, Tamiflu can prove deadly. People have forgotten that fever, well managed rather than removed, is a life saver mechanism. Monitor it, cool cloths over 103, but allow it to do its work, please. Certainly microbe, fungus, bacteria, and viruses are provably killed off by FEVER. Donald Rumsfeld, former Minister of Defence owned and oversaw the company that developed Tamiflu, which in turn has earned him a 700% profit over and over again. Tamiflu is an even more dangerous way than aspirin to improperly treat flu and to increase flu’s chances of turning very serious indeed. Tamiflu is a protease inhibitor. Not only is it known to cause horrific destruction of one’s entire body skin, but, more to the point, Tamiflu sends the flu virus into hiding to replicate at top speed in the absence of the necessary anti viral fever, specifically in the absence of what should be a managed, controlled fever, which, it seems we have long ago forgotten, is the body’s very best defence naturally designed to kill off viruses.
This appears to be a government press release, which may not reflect the paper’s own take on it all.
I actually think the story is sort of funny (maybe that’s why they published it?) … Everyone has hyped up this swine flu thing so much and now the BC government is complaining that people are taking it too seriously and overtaxing their emergency rooms. So they are now saying it is mild, etc. and to stay at home unless you get really sick (which they say you likely won’t). So reality finally comes back home to roost, lol.
The solution would be for the BC government to ask the mainstream news to please turn down the volume a bit
I agree that supporting the body’s ability to heal itself is much better than the drug approach, even without involvement of war criminal Rumsfeld.
We’ve known about Vit. C’s ability to both kill viruses and heal the damage for over 60 years. New understanding of how Vit D also helps protect against disease has been showing up during the last year in health articles.
My favorite sources for the non-drug approach are mercola.com and naturalnews.com.