H1N1 taking a toll on hospital staff

Hospitals around the state are experiencing a higher absenteeism among their employees, because of H1N1.

Community, St. Francis, and St. Vincent all say the flu has affected their staff. Methodist is experiencing the same trend.

And in an interview that 24-Hour News 8 did just minutes ago outside the emergency room, their head of infectious disease said they are beginning to rely on extra pools of employees to help out.

“They're either calling in because they're ill themselves or they've got children themselves who are ill. So again, we've had contingency plans in place for having health care workers who are sick, and so we have resource pools we can draw upon to backfill the staff,” said Dr. Doug Webb of Methodist Hospital.

When asked if the staff at Methodist was short right now?

Dr. Webb responded, “We're not short but I would anticipate that uh that this is going to get worse for the next few weeks.”

All hospitals 24-Hour News 8 spoke to on Thursday say they expect more sick calls as the flu continues to spread.