 While the 2018 flu season hit hard all across the country and although the virus is starting to fade out locally, it is not completely gone. Ascension health in Brainerd had one flu related hospitalization still just this week. Now since the start of the flu season, the hospital in Brainerd has seen more than 130 hospitalizations for influenza. That is more than double last year's 52. Ascension health was all hands on deck as the hospital had such a high volume of patients throughout this last flu season. It does affect things. I mean it just increases your staffing needs and you have to be able to flex your staff so that you have adequate staff to care for all of the patients and it does create some challenges sometimes but you know the whole team pulled together and everybody did a great job of working together and making sure that we provided all the care that the patients needed. The state of Minnesota as a whole had the worst flu season in years with more than 6,000 flu related hospitalizations.