Shortage of hospital beds, children’s medications have Whatcom County health officials on high alert

WHATCOM COUNTY, Wash. — Whatcom County has reported that it has a very low hospital capacity for children and stores there are seeing a shortage of kids’ fever and cold medication.

“We’re seeing unprecedented demand in terms of children’s hospital beds in particular,” Dr. Greg Thompson, a health officer for the county, said. “So we’re seeing a lot of viruses now RSV, influenza, still seeing COVID activity and it’s really all just hitting us all at once.”

Thompson said hospitals are on the brink. He said that it’s not just in Whatcom County, but across the state of Washington, 99% of pediatric medical beds and pediatric ICU beds are full.

“Hospitals are having to do all of the things that you know we’ve learned to do in COVID, having to be flexible to make space for kids in the ER, having people really work at the limit of their capabilities to make sure that we’re meeting the demand for all these sick kids,” Thompson said.

There’s also a shortage of some antibiotics, as well as the common cold and flu medication for children in the county.

“We have asked pharmacies in Whatcom County to voluntarily limit the number of bottles that they’re selling to each person so hopefully that will help keep the shortage under control,” Thompson said. Thompson said while the county hopes limiting the amount of medication that people can purchase will help, most fevers can be treated with rest and fluids.

“Not all fevers need to be treated, I think a fever is kind of like a check engine light on your car, it means something’s up and you need to do a little more exploration and figure out what that problem is,” he said. “But you know your purpose is not to turn off the check engine light, the goal isn’t to just turn off the fever.”

However, there are symptoms to look out for that may indicate your child may be experiencing something more serious and should see a doctor.

“The fevers we worry about the most are any fever in a kid under 3 months old and 100.4 is kind of our magic number in that age group,” Thompson said. “In older kids, we really worry about fevers mostly when they’re lasting a long time, so a fever that lasts five days or longer or if you have a fever in the early part of an illness and it goes away and comes back later, that makes us worry that you may have developed what we call a secondary bacterial infection.”

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