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Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital is on “total war alert” for its Covid-19 situation as asymptomatic cases begin to pile up.
“Everything has improved in the last two weeks,” said Professor Bill Tormey, a specialist in chemical pathology at the hospital.
“They are on total war alert. There is a lot of Covid in the place and everyone is wearing full protective gear. ”
Beaumont has had four wards closed due to coronavirus outbreaks in just two weeks. One of those rooms, a cardiology unit, remains closed and is due to reopen on Friday.
Following the outbreak in the coronary care unit that resulted in that closure, a full review of all staff was ordered, along with testing of the so-called “98” patients, those with clear symptoms of Covid who nevertheless tested negative.
While the hospital has only one confirmed case of Covid in its Intensive Care Unit, it has capacity for just four more critical care patients.
A source from a regional hospital suggested that serious problems are expected in ICUs both in Beaumont and Mater Hospital in Dublin’s north city center, and other smaller hospitals are expected to offer ICU support in the event that that happens.
That could happen within the next four to six days, the source said.
Dr. Laura Durcan, a specialist in rheumatology at Beaumont, said there has been a marked increase in the number of patients entering the hospital for non-Covid ailments and who have subsequently tested positive for the disease.
“The challenge is keeping everyone else safe,” he said, adding that it takes “a lot of inventiveness” to keep patients separate from each other at the time of admission, particularly given that a third of Beaumont’s private rooms they have no bathroom.
Currently, the hospital has nine confirmed cases of the virus, along with another 13 suspected of having the disease.
She said:
She said the increased use of PPE within the hospital’s emergency department is aimed at reducing the number of medical personnel that must be isolated after a positive diagnosis for a patient.
Dr Durcan added that the hospital’s use of Genexpert tests for Covid, which can return a result in one hour, was now strictly rationed, meaning that patient testing could now take up to seven to eight hours. before a result is returned.
She said that “on any given day we are pretty close to the maximum capacity of the ICU.”
“From a Covid point of view, we could easily get overwhelmed,” he said.
Beaumont is an 820-bed hospital employing approximately 3,000 people.
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