Surge in flu cases leads overwhelmed children's hospital to cancel operations

Sheffield Children's Hospital has postponed a number of non-urgent operations to help to manage a "busy period" for the hospital, which has seen a large number of patients being admitted with seasonal flu and other respiratory illnesses.

It has also emerged a previously healthy three-year-old girl died from swine flu two days after apparently catching a cold. Lana Ameen lived in Greater Manchester and her parents, a doctor and nurse, now want all children vaccinated against the illness. Their daughter was originally diagnosed with an infection and sent home from hospital but was rushed back later the same day.

The chief operating officer at Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust, Isabel Hemmings, said: "Intensive care has been busy in the last two weeks but this is not unexpected for the time of year as we usually have additional patients in the winter months.

"We have taken the decision to postpone about 80 elective operations this week, including those patients who need to stay in critical care following their operation. This is to help manage a very busy workload for our dedicated and hard working staff.

"The postponed operations also include day case surgery, where patients do not need an overnight stay, which will resume at the end of the week."

Mrs Hemmings added: "The vast majority of children recover quickly from flu viruses. However, there are a small number of children usually with underlying health issues, who may require hospital admission."

The Government has relaunched its national flu prevention in an attempt to quell the rising number of people being diagnosed with the illness.