The hospitals in Iowa’s largest city this week said they were full up with patients that put them at near capacity. Doctor Kent Carr of Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines says it has been busy. Carr says the last week or so, pretty much every day the hospital had been full. Dr. Carr says there’s not any one outbreak of illness, it’s all the typical things they see.
Carr says some of the problem could be the cold weather and people passing along illnesses as they stayed inside. Carr says it’s not unusual for this time of year for a lot of respiratory illnesses to get passed around at home and school from people staying inside. Carr advises anyone in the state to take precautions against winter illness.
He says the best thing to prevent upper respiratory and other illnesses from spreading is frequent hand washing. Carr and other doctors encouraged people in the Des Moines area to seek treatment at a clinic before heading to the hospital to help alleviate some of the backlog.