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Updated 38 minutes ago
EL DÁIL has been informed about a nursing home in the west of the country in which 90% of its 28 residents have tested positive for Covid-19, and one of the residents has died.
The outbreak was raised by several Dáil deputies, who said that seven out of eight nursing staff tested positive and that, as a result, only one nurse was on duty.
The HSE confirmed that an outbreak was declared Sunday after serial testing identified two cases, and that all residents and staff were examined the next day.
An HSE infection prevention and control nurse attended the nursing home on Monday, October 19 to provide support to the staff.
“The first outbreak control team meeting chaired by public health was held on Tuesday and since then there have been daily outbreak control team meetings, and continue,” said HSE COO Anne O ‘Connor, at a press conference this afternoon.
“As of this morning, we know that a significant number of nurses and healthcare workers have tested positive. We know that a large number of residents have tested positive. ”
Pearse Doherty TD had told Dáil earlier today that the owners of the nursing home had been “begging” for additional support.
“They’ve been desperately asking for HSE to help them for the past two days, they haven’t gotten the help,” Doherty said.
We have nurses who have been on call now, a nurse for 72 hours caring for 28 residents. Unfortunately, one of those residents passed away, others are being transferred to the hospital.
Roscommon-Galway TD Michael Fitzmaurice said the nursing home is in his constituency and all but one of the nursing staff has tested positive.
“Eight members of the nursing staff, seven tested positive, 11 care assistants, 10 of them tested positive. They went over the protocols and contacted the HSE, the words they said were “don’t panic, get agency personnel.” Well, there were no agency staff and the only nurse and care assistant who did not test positive did 14 hours yesterday, ”he said.
The HSE promised the staff this morning and no one showed up. This morning, two people have been admitted to the hospital and this nursing home is considering having to send the rest of the patients to the hospital because the HSE did not send staff to help them.
Roscommon-Galway TD Denis Naughten said he has contacted the Health Minister on the matter.
“We found this morning in my constituency where 90% of nursing home residents, 90% of nursing home staff, have now tested positive for Covid-19.” he said.
We have a nursing home that is being run for the last three days by a cook and two other staff members, which is totally unacceptable.
“Now Tánaiste accept that you don’t know the detail in relation to that. I had the opportunity to provide the Minister of Health with that information here this morning and in fairness to him he left the room immediately after obtaining that information to act on it. “
Taking questions from the leaders today, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said: “I will absolutely investigate this once I finish here in the chamber today. And it reassures me to hear him say that the Minister of Health is already on the case and I think that is important. “
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Addressing staffing concerns at the facility, O’Connor said there is now a “stable staffing staffing.”
“We continue to provide support and we also know that the lists are covered, that we have staff to support the nursing home. We also have a dedicated manager, who provides daily support in terms of access to staff, ”he said.
We continue to closely monitor the nursing home. And we know that we have a stable staff for the next three days. So I just want to address that because I am aware that there has been a lot of discussion about it today.
In response to this afternoon at the Dáil, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said he could not go into much detail about the case, but that top management is on the scene “now as we speak.”
“Let me be very clear, these cases were detected through tests that the HSE does. Infection Prevention and Control teams were deployed, personnel were deployed, serial tests are being carried out, all personnel and residents were tested, ”he said.
“There is senior management on site at the moment as we speak, significant financial support is provided to all nursing homes, significant personal protective equipment is being supplied, HSE is doing everything it can to protect nursing homes.” .
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