The flu season just keeps getting worse, with more than two dozen deaths in Georgia so far.
Hundreds of patients are flooding hospital emergency rooms.
For the first time, downtown Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital has had to set up a mobile emergency department outside to handle the overflow of patients. The mobile facility is in the hospital's parking lot next to where ambulances pull up to deliver patients.
"We are not unique in this situation," said Dr. Hany Atallah, chief of emergency medicine at Grady Health Systems. "We have seen an increase of up to 25 percent in patients on any given day."
The facility, Carolinas MED-1, was provided by Carolinas HealthCare System. The facility is ordinarily used as a mobile medical facility for catastrophic events such as bad weather or other disasters. Grady has contracted to use it for at least 30 days.
"We believe strongly in being able to provide everything for the city of Atlanta and the citizens of Atlanta, and because of this flu season, this has really challenged us," Atallah said. "Not only in terms of staffing, but moreso in terms of space. In addition to the emergency department being full, we've also had a full hospital. And again, that's not unique to Grady, but what it's been across the nation at many hospitals."
The mobile facility includes a two-bed operating room and up to 14 extra beds, all with state-of-the-art equipment identical to the fully-equipped emergency department a few steps away, inside Grady.
Across Georgia, during this flu season, 25 people have died, so far, from the flu compared to this time in 2017, when there was one death, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health. There have been 671 people hospitalized so far this year in Georgia, compared with 257 at this time in 2017.
The mobile emergency department is one more medical weapon to treat additional patients even faster.
"We should be able to get up to about at least 100 patients a day," Atallah said.
PHOTOS | Mobile emergency department added at Grady Hospital for overflow patients
It's something that is a lifesaver during this deadly flu season.
"It absolutely is -- just being able to have the additional space and the state of the art equipment," Atallah said.
