Medical Clinics Seeing More Patients

Dr. Warren Waters has had more frequent rounds lately. He says his greater mobile urgent care center has noticed 10 – 15% jump in patients.

“Now it does tend to increase your wait times a little bit because you've got more patients out there and so it does bog things down a little bit but we're still doing just fine,” says Dr. Waters.
Even with some humorous signs around the office, doctor waters and the staff are still taking the illness seriously.

“We are getting a lot of people that are coming from vacations that are coming in and they just want to come in just to be tested to make sure they do not have the swine flu,” says Licensed Practical Nurse Sonja Collins. People with symptoms are mixed in with patients that are just afraid. Waters says he's had a couple of cases where people wanted to get screened simply because they were near a Hispanic person. This is known as the "worried well."

“Where they're not really having any symptoms they just feel they need to be tested to make sure they don't have the swine flu,” says Dr. Warren. While there still have been no positive cases of swine flu in our area doctors still urge you to take some precautions.

“Wash your hands, use alcohol based hand sanitizers, stay away from people who are sick and stay away from crowded areas where people are coughing I think everyone's going to be okay,” says Waters.