Woman Dies of Swine Flu at L&M

Admitted with swine flu and underlying conditions

By AMANDA RAUS

Updated 6:35 AM EST, Thu, Oct 29, 2009

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A 64-year-old woman who checked into a New London hospital about a week ago with swine flu has died. Doctors said she had underlying medical conditions.

"Probably due to mostly complicating medical factors, she passed away. She had a lot of underlying medical conditions that contributed to her death," said Dr. Peter Later, chairman of the Emergency Department at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital.

The hospital is also treating a younger swine flu patient. Severe cases, like the woman who died Wednesday, are rare, hospital officials said. Most patients aren't getting so sick.

"This swine flu or H1N1 pandemic flu has been more of a mild flu. Fever, sore throat, cough, lasts for a few days and goes away and is fairly mild," Later said.

The hospital is also seeing an increase in the number of patients with flu-like symptoms.

About 18 percent of those coming into the emergency room have flu-like illnesses. Staff members have taken precautions to keep those patients in a separate area.

"They're asked to wear a mask (and) sit in a certain area. They're given an etiquette bag, which contains Kleenex and things like that. We try to keep them away from the general population in the waiting room," said Diane Smith, an emergency room nurse.

Because there are so many patients with flu-like symptoms, the hospital has instituted visitor restrictions. There will be no visitors under the age of 18, and maternity ward visits have been limited to immediate adult family members.

"We've seen some of the more severe cases of H1N1 have been in pregnant females, so we're just trying to be mindful of protecting the young and the pregnant," said Later.

Doctors hope by taking these precautions, they can slow down the spread of the virus at least at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital.

Three people have died during the second wave of swine flu, which began on Aug. 29. Between April and Aug. 29, 10 people in the state died of swine flu.