Inside UNC's pediatric ICU, where the tiniest patients struggle to breathe
Right now, hospitals across the state only have a handful of open beds to care for the most critically ill children.
The North Carolina Pediatric Society uses a live dashboard to track capacity in pediatric intensive care units in the state. On Tuesday afternoon, the pediatric ICU beds were 94 percent full as more children became ill with the flu and RSV.
WRAL was the only media outlet allowed inside the UNC Children's Hospital's pediatric ICU, where some of the tiniest patients are struggling to breathe.
There are 20 beds at UNC’s pediatric ICU and with a surge in respiratory viruses, they don't stay empty for long.
Dr. Benny Joyner, chief of critical care medicine at UNC Children's Hospital, gave WRAL exclusive access to the pediatric ICU where 40 to 50 percent of new patients right now are in respiratory failure.
"For many kids that come in, they’re really struggling to breathe. They have a weak cry. They can’t even fully cry just as we expect a child to. They’re not able to do that," Joyner said.
UNC Children's Hospital started seeing a surge of 134 RSV cases in late September. It peaked at 205 cases at the end of October. Last week, that total dropped to 161 cases.
RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, has been surging and straining children’s hospitals across the country.
For most healthy children and adults, RSV is like a cold and they recover fully in about a week. But infants, especially those born prematurely or with weakened immune systems, and children and adults with chronic respiratory conditions such as asthma or a lung disease can experience severe disease. This can include bronchiolitis (inflammation of the small airways in the lungs) and pneumonia (infection of the lungs). Symptoms include those of a common cold like congestion, coughing and fever.
Joyner said RSV is usually the worst for four to five days with and most children recovering within 10 days.
The hospital is now seeing an influx of children with the flu from 24 cases three weeks ago to 285 last week.
"The biggest thing for us right now is the sheer volume," Joyner said.
Respiratory patients are denoted by purple signs posted on their doors that warn anyone who enters to use "Droplet Contact Precautions" to prevent spreading of respiratory viruses. Inside, children are treated with oxygen masks or breathing tubes. The worst cases require a heart-lung bypass machine that pumps blood from a baby's body and circulates it back filled with oxygen.
"It's a slow progress. It's sometimes very slow to start to see recovery, so we see families start to get exhausted," nurse Joy Hazard said.
Hazard said she has seen the resilience of children as they recover from these viruses. She said that's why her team pushes through staffing shortages, a pandemic and now a new surge of patients.
"It is what we do. We are used to a busy unit, but these waves of viruses after viruses, we pull together. We have a great team. That’s why we’re still here." Hazard said.
