TORONTO - A new look at last year's flu pandemic finds that two-thirds of hospitalizations for the H1N1 flu were in a five-week period beginning at the end of October.
The study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information says that during those five weeks, H1N1 accounted for 3.4 per cent of hospitalizations across the country.
That was more than the percentage for heart attacks or for strokes.
The institute says that in Ontario, one in four emergency visits during October and November 2009 were by patients with flu-like symptoms -- compared to about one in seven in previous years.
Overall, the study finds there were more than 15,000 confirmed and probable H1N1 hospitalizations from April to December -- about 6,500 more patients than the number of lab-confirmed hospitalized cases previously reported.
Jeremy Veillard, vice-president of research and analysis at the institute, says the impact of the virus on hospitals was significant and much higher than originally estimated -- and it's good news that hospitals were able to weather the storm.
The estimated cost of H1N1 for hospitals was approximately $200 million, the CIHI study said, including $128 million during the busiest five weeks. The estimates don't include physician fees.
"As the first global pandemic in more than 40 years, the response to H1N1 from public health authorities was unprecedented," Veillard says in a statement released Tuesday.
Kathleen Morris, head of emerging issues at CIHI, says the study shows that Canada's hospitals were able to build on what was learned during the SARS crisis in 2003, and cope with the high number of H1N1 patients.
The influx was dealt with in a number of ways, the study found.
In some cases, patients who typically would have been in intensive care units were moved to other wards and monitoring was increased.
And some hospitals delayed the admission of patients who were scheduled for elective surgery.
