"You can tell that they are more full than usual," said Hernández, who was seated with his son on his lap in the pediatric emergency room at Jamaica Hospital Center with 50 other families yesterday at noon.

"I'm not scared, but I'm getting impatient – to go back to work, and because we are waiting so long here," he added.

Hernández, a Queens resident for 24 years, is one of hundreds of people who have been to a Queens hospital in the past few days with flu symptoms, only to face long waits and little information about the H1N1 flu.

The closing of several hospitals in Queens has made the emergency situation created by the flu in this borough worse. Residents of Jamaica and Elmhurst lost two hospitals in March of this year, Mary Immaculate Hospital and St. John's Queens Hospital, which together served 100,000 patients annually in their emergency rooms.

A spokesperson for Jamaica Hospital Center, Natifia Gaines, said that when they closed the two hospitals, the number of patients in the emergency room grew from 200 to 350 per day, and with the H1N1 flu, the number grew to 425.

"But on Monday we saw 495 patients, and yesterday we saw more than 500," Gaines said yesterday.

"We felt the impact of the closures immediately because Mary Immaculate is next door, but I think that when the two hospitals closed, all the Queens hospitals felt it," Gaines added.

The Queens New York Hospital in Jamaica put up a yellow tent on Tuesday to attend the hundreds of patients arriving at the emergency room.

In Elmhurst, where two schools were closed, PS 16 and PS 19, families waited all day on Tuesday to be attended at the Elmhurst Hospital emergency room.

City Council Member Julissa Ferreras (D-District 21) said that neighborhood residents with whom she spoke left after waiting five or six hours. An undocumented patient waited eight hours with her son, who had a 104-degree fever. (The child was diagnosed with an ear infection.)

Ferreras commented that the Health Department had sent more pediatric staff to the borough last weekend, but said that they still will need more for some time to come.

"I believe that we need another plan for Queens. We do not have what we need yet," she said.

A State Health Department spokesperson said in a statement that it is closely monitoring the emergency situation created by the flu and is in permanent contact with all of the state hospitals, especially those in the city.

It was indicated that, if necessary, additional emergency rooms will be made available to attend to the cases that may show up.