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Large Covid-19 outbreaks in three hospitals have severely restricted services, and one hospital, in Naas, has halted all but critical care work, according to HSE officials.
At three hospitals this week – Naas, Letterkenny and Limerick – large outbreaks of the virus have impacted staffing, with the ripple effect of taking wards out of service and forcing elective care to be suspended.
Currently, 161 University of Limerick Hospital Group staff members are out of work due to cases or contacts, most of them at Limerick University Hospital, authorities said.
Another 77 employees from Naas General Hospital are out, along with 55 at Letterkenny General Hospital.
Naas hospital is in the same position as last April, and only critical care is provided, according to HSE CEO Paul Reid.
This showed the need for the public to maintain their public health behaviors. “A lot of games are lost in the second half, so we need the public to stay with us and walk us through the duration of the Level 5 restrictions,” Reid said.
Most of the staff absences were due to staff being contacts rather than cases, but hospitals were being hit by a “double whammy” causing a severe disruption of services, said Anne O’Connor, director of operations. of HSE.
Range of factors
Ms. O’Connor said there were a variety of factors behind the hospital outbreaks and that in some places older infrastructure and capacity may be contributing factors.
In a significant change in policy, hospitals are now required to test all hospitalized patients prior to admission. Preadmission tests had been recommended for hospitalized patients, but not all hospitals practiced them. However, the guideline was changed in the last two weeks, according to HSE Clinical Director Dr. Colm Henry.
Mr. Reid told HSE’s weekly briefing that indicators such as the number of cases, positivity and the number of contacts were all positive, while the hospital and ICU numbers were “stabilized and holding.”
“We have not seen the significant reduction that we would have liked to see” in the numbers of hospitals and intensive care, he said. “As long as we have the virus and its presence, it puts our system at risk.”
While acknowledging the hope that the prospect of a vaccine offers, he urged the public not to “get distracted” when so many steps have to be taken before approving one.
There are currently 287 people with Covid-19 in the hospital, including 39 in the ICU.
The mean stay of virus patients in hospital is 17.7 days and of those requiring a stay in intensive care of 34.7 days.
Over the past seven days, 78,245 tests have been processed, with an end-to-end response time from referral to test result of 1.6 days when the test is negative and 2.2 days when it is positive.
Overall positivity rates are 3.9 percent and 3 percent for boys. Among the latter, the rates range from 5% in childcare, 2% in post-primary education, and 2.8% in primary.
Describing a picture of continuous improvement in trends, Dr. Henry said that cases were declining by as much as 6 percent, the 14-day incidence was now 145 cases per 100,000 people against a peak of 310, and cases among young people had dropped dramatically.
On time
“If the decline continues, we are on track to reach 50-100 cases a day in early December, but that depends on everyone doing their part.”
Attendance and emergency department admissions increased last week, but are still up to 15% lower than in the same period last year.
More than 500,000 patients have been treated in virtual clinics created during the pandemic, O’Connor said. The 1% non-attendance rate is much lower than in normal clinics.
He said there are currently 161 people in Citywest, including 68 people in isolation and 93 healthcare workers.
When asked if people should book vacations to come home for Christmas, Reid said it was “too early” to call this anything.
“The next few weeks are our immediate goal, for people to maintain their resilience. Everything is very volatile. We would be reluctant to look beyond December 1, ”when Level 5 measures must end.
When asked if the HSE should order more flu vaccines to meet the growing demand this winter, Reid said this was not possible. This year’s order was 20 percent higher than last year, he noted.
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