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HSE CEO Paul Reid said there is uncertainty about what will happen next with Covid-19, and that it is a challenge for HSE and for the country.
Speaking at the HSE’s Covid-19 weekly briefing, Mr. Reid said that the HSE had to ensure that the capacity of the Irish health system was not “stretched” and that it should focus on vulnerable groups in particular.
He warned that the cost of establishing a long-term testing and tracking system would be very significant and on a scale that no one could have anticipated a few months ago.
He said testing and tracing was a key part of helping to unlock restrictions in society.
He said the cost of supplying personal protective equipment to the Irish health system would be one billion euros per year. However, he said the cost of not investing in testing, tracking, and PPE could be much higher.
In terms of cost projections, HSE CEO Paul Reid says the cost of PPE over the course of a year is likely to be a billion euros. pic.twitter.com/uQ46w98ly3
– RTÉ News (@ belongws) May 10, 2020
Reid said all trends were declining in terms of numbers in the ICU and the number of confirmed cases in hospitals. But he said that no one could predict what would happen next.
Reid said that HSE was still in a position to hold 100,000 tests per week as of May 18.
But he said he was starting a scoping exercise to develop a future model for testing and tracking that he said would complete his recommendations in the fall.
HSE CEO Paul Reid says 120 million masks will be delivered from South Korea to Ireland in the coming weeks pic.twitter.com/11RQjUaHcV
– RTÉ News (@ belongws) May 10, 2020
Reid said that HSE now needed to start starting non-Covid services safely, but said that this would not be easy and that the services would not be the same as before.
He said that they could not exert unmanageable pressure on acute public hospitals and that they would have to use public and private systems.
Three priorities were established: cancer services, time-dependent surgery, such as cardiovascular surgery, neurosurgery, and transplants, and the use of the National Treatment Purchase Fund to maximize the use of private hospitals.
Recovering community services, such as mental health and disability services, was also essential.
Testing of all 30,000 and 28,000 nursing home staff had already been completed and the focus was now shifting to disability and mental health facilities.
The number of nursing homes of greatest concern to health authorities has dropped to 56, and the HSE said they were seeing signs of stabilization in this sector.
Nursing home testing revealed a much lower positivity rate than expected and would provide useful lessons about testing in congregated settings in the future, said HSE Clinical Director Dr. Colm Henry.
Reid said 120 employees were involved in tracing contacts for routine cases referred through general practitioners and 300 public health teams were working on some of the most complex long-term residential care cases.
There are 12 outbreaks in the Centers for Direct Provision, involving 149 cases and a very low number of cases in prisons: five outbreaks, involving 17 cases. The Irish Prison Service has said that there are no confirmed cases among the prison population.
Reid said the average response time to get test results was 2.4 days. However, he admitted that some people were waiting longer and said there was still more work to be done in the next fortnight in response times.
Work was ongoing with the Irish College of General Practitioners to establish a helpline for people concerned about their test results.
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Reid said the demand for mass had gone from 200,000 per day to 1.2 million masks per day.
The HSE now needed nine million masks per week.
He said contact had been established with South Korea, including a phone call from Taoiseach to the president of South Korea, and that a supply line had been unblocked from there with 120 million masks to be delivered in the coming weeks.
HSE expected to have to spend a billion euros a year on PPE and hundreds of millions of euros on a test and track system.
HSE chief operating officer Anne O’Connor said attendance at emergency departments was increasing, but even lower than this time last year.
There was also an increase in the number of people awaiting discharge. More than 300 people who could be discharged had a delay in discharge, mainly in relation to their discharge to residential care.
As of last night, he said there were 543 patients at the hospital with confirmed Covid-19 cases and 196 suspected cases.
There were 72 confirmed cases in intensive care and 161 intensive care beds still available.
O’Connor said the number of general hospital beds available had dropped significantly from last week from 1,680 to 1,242 as activity in hospitals increased.
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