Respiratory illnesses strain capacity at UNC Children's

When your child gets sick, there might not be a bed available for them at the hospital. UNC Children’s Hospital in Chapel Hill has been operating at full capacity for months.

Doctors say the high capacity has been caused by several factors. Most recently, the spread of respiratory viruses around the community has put of North Carolina’s youth in their care.

“We’ve been seeing a lot of children coming in with respiratory distress. What that means is that they’re really having difficulty breathing,” said Dr. Benny Joyner, UNC Children’s Hospital chief of critical care medicine.

He continued, “They will see a lot of the muscles around their neck and stomach being used to try and breathe in and out. What happens with that is that sometimes, kids will tire out.”

When a child has difficulty maintaining enough oxygen in their body, that’s when they will end up in the care of Joyner’s team in the pediatric ICU to receive additional support or supplemental oxygen.

“All of our beds are full,” said Joyner.

At one point last week, Joyner said, there were nine patients waiting for beds in the pediatric emergency room that only has 12 beds available.

“75% of our available capacity to see patients was limited by the fact that we’re just awaiting beds,” he said. “That only leaves three beds for patients to be seen.”

Joyner said on average patients have to wait hours for beds which has caused a ripple effect throughout the hospital.

"As our capacity becomes limited because of the viral surge and viral crush that we have throughout the emergency department and other areas, then we can’t do the semi-elective or elective operative procedures that we need to do. Certainly there are emergency procedures that need to be done that we can’t delay so those move forward. But, as procedures get delayed, some procedures that are semi-elective, become less elective, become more urgent, and then turn into emergency procedures if we can’t get them scheduled in a timely fashion,” said Joyner.

There are still some patients admitted with COVID, but staff report most pediatric cases are currently being caused by the flu, RSV and rhinovirus.

Joyner said he is optimistic RSV peaked in December but said the drop in cases hasn’t been large enough yet to make an impact at the hospital level.

“I know people talk about a peak and then a decline. The problem with that is that decline hasn't really made measurable differences in our ability to see patients because there's still a lot of patients out there. So instead of 100, it's maybe 95, as an example. It's not until it gets below 80 and really seeing a 20% or 30% drop, will we start to feel that here inside the hospital,” he explained.

As kids start a new semester after a busy and germ-filled holiday season, Joyner urged parents to keep their child’s vaccinations up to date. He also suggested keeping kids home from school when they are sick to help mitigate the spread of various illnesses.

“Every child reacts differently, and what might not be such a severe cold or problem for you, may absolutely be a severe problem for someone else,” Joyner said.