Flu season appears to be hitting Chula Vista’s two hospitals particularly hard this season, with the sheer volume of patients showing up at Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista reaching a point Thursday that administrators said temporarily forced declaration of an “internal disaster,” the technical term that allows suspension of ambulance deliveries. “It allowed us a couple of hours to decompress and to make sure that we could catch up with the things that needed to be done and to make sure that patients were safe,” said Dr. Juan Tovar, a Scripps vice president of physician operations and an emergency specialist. “Yesterday, we had 30 patients waiting to be admitted at Chula Vista,” added Dr. Ghazala Sharieff, chief medical officer for acute care at Scripps. “That facility has a 24-bed emergency department, so when you have 30 patients waiting to be admitted, where do you put them?” The hospital’s former maternity unit, recently converted for use by adult patients in exactly this situation, she said, quickly filled and now the facility is seeking state permission to use a trailer outside the entrance of the hospital’s emergency department to help absorb the overflow. In the meantime, Scripps has been transferring patients to other hospitals in its system, though that has been difficult with every location at or near capacity. “You can imagine that using that annex, that’s a lot safer than putting patients in hallways, but we’re waiting for (the California Department of Public Health) permission to use it,” Sharieff said. Medical staff work from temporary tent setup outside Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center’s emergency room to help handle the overflow. The tent area allows for 6 additional exam rooms in addition to the emergency room beds. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)Patricia Ortiz (l) of San Diego is examined by physician assistant Nicole McCann (r) at the temporary tent setup outside Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center’s emergency room to help handle the overflow. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)Show Caption1 of 2Medical staff work from temporary tent setup outside Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center’s emergency room to help handle the overflow. The tent area allows for 6 additional exam rooms in addition to the emergency room beds. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)Expand Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center across town also found itself handling more patients in a tent outside its emergency department last week as the number of patients arriving exceeded capacity. “Part of the reason is just because of the amount of cases that we’ve been seeing here in South Bay, but it’s also to isolate people that come in with upper respiratory infections so they’re not putting other people at risk who are coming in with other issues, whether it’s abdominal pain or patients on dialysis with kidney disease or on dialysis or with diabetes,” said Dr. Andres Smith, medical director of emergency services at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center. Smith said that Sharp Chula Vista actually saw its largest single-day number of confirmed flu patients about a week and a half ago, giving him some reason to hope that the pressure exerted on hospitals, which always lags behind infections, may have plateaued. That notion seems to be borne out by the latest weekly respiratory virus report from the county health department. From Dec. 29 through Jan. 4, 13 percent of emergency department cases reported flu-like symptoms, a percentage point lower than was the case two weeks ago, but still nearly twice the percentage recorded during the same week the previous season. Likewise, 3,412 new confirmed flu cases were reported to the public health department in the first week of January, nearly the same number as the week before. These numbers, though, represent just a fraction of all cases as most don’t get sick enough to seek medical attention and have the cause of their infection confirmed through testing. Overall, the county emergency services department said that services are generally taxed, saying in a statement that “the influx of patients is being felt across the system,” though no other hospital save Scripps Chula Vista had yet declared an internal disaster. A backup with ambulances and patients wait just outside Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center’s emergency room. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune) Thus far, Sharieff, the Scripps medical director, said that her organization and others have not broadly enacted visitation restrictions and mandatory masking of visitors as has often occurred during particularly virulent flu seasons and during the COVID-19 pandemic. But, after reaching out to her counterparts at other local providers Friday afternoon, that eventuality was looking likely. “Visitors, if they’re not feeling well, we’re asking that they please stay home and, other visitors, if they could, please wear a mask during this time when people are so ill,” Sharieff said. Tovar said that flu itself, at least in the case of Scripps Chula Vista, is not suddenly occupying all of the available beds. But, the increase is on top of an overall ongoing increase in the demand for treatment. “We have a patient population that’s, you know, it’s underserved and they may not have insurance or the access to medical care that other parts of our county may have, and so it’s hard for them to get in to see a doc,” Tovar said. “And so all of these different things, they, you know they stack up on top of each other.” He said he would not want to discourage patients from coming in if they are worried that their illness may be taking a serious turn, but pleaded for patience. For the most part, he said, those who have been waiting longer have been understanding. “You know, the interesting part, why I love working down here, is that our patients, in general, are patient,” Tovar said. While emergency workers never discourage patients from coming in if their guts tell them that something is wrong, Smith, the Sharp emergency director, did provide some additional advice for those with viral symptoms such as cough, fever, congestion and chills to help gauge whether what they’re experiencing needs an emergency visit. “If you’re vomiting, you’re not able to take or tolerate fluids, definitely come to a hospital,” Smith said. “If the fever is not getting controlled despite taking Tylenol or ibuprofen, I would recommend you come to the emergency room; if it’s a very young child, like an infant, and the fever’s not getting under control, come in; if it’s a geriatric patient, an older patient, where they’re not getting better and their cough is getting worse or they’re experiencing shortness of breath, come to the hospital.”