Dr. Tim Gibson was working a shift at Winchester Hospital when he saw a 7-week-old baby with RSV struggling to breathe. The child needed intensive care. But these days, pediatric ICUs in Massachusetts are usually full. “We called every hospital within 200 miles, and they all said, ‘We don’t have a bed, do your best.’ And it was a real, real sick kid,” Gibson said.
A spike in cases of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is straining hospitals across Massachusetts and forcing them to employ new strategies to cope with the wave of young patients.