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There are 36 intensive care beds available in the country, as the number of people hospitalized with Covid-19 continues to increase steadily.
On Friday morning there were 244 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the hospital and 30 patients in intensive care.
The number of people with Covid-19 admitted to the hospital has risen steadily in recent weeks, amid rising rates of the virus across the country.
Cavan General Hospital has the most Covid-19 patients with 28 as of 8 p.m. Thursday, according to a Health Service Executive (HSE) daily operations report.
Cavan, along with other border counties, has seen a sharp increase in the growth rate of the disease in recent weeks and currently has the highest incidence in the country.
Cork University Hospital had the second highest number of Covid-19 positive patients with 22, followed by Beaumont Hospital (17), Tallaght Hospital (17) and Letterkenny Hospital (16).
Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown registered 15 patients and University Hospital Galway had 13 patients, five of whom had been admitted in the past 24 hours.
The report describes in total that there were 24 additional hospitalizations in the last 24 hours. There were another 116 suspected cases of coronavirus throughout the acute care hospital system, he noted.
Without space
As the pressure on the hospital system has increased in recent weeks, the number of beds available in the intensive care unit (ICU) has decreased. There were 36 empty intensive care beds as of 6:30 p.m. Thursday, according to the report. This is a decrease from 39 vacant ICU beds the previous week.
In all, there were 240 patients in intensive care beds throughout the hospital system. Eight hospitals had no available ICU beds, including Connolly, Cork University Hospital, University Hospital Galway, Mater Hospital, Mercy, Mullingar, Portlaoise, and Midlands Regional Hospital Tullamore.
Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital has the freest ICU capacity, with six open beds and free staff.
There were 29 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in all intensive care units, and 20 of those patients were on ventilators on Thursday, according to the HSE report. A patient who had been in the ICU with coronavirus had died in the last 24 hours.
There were also 14 other suspected cases of Covid-19 in intensive care units, and eight of them were on ventilators, according to the report.
Repeated warnings
Public health officials have repeatedly warned in recent weeks that the growing number of cases would have an impact on the health service’s ability to cope. Hospitals have had to reduce their overall capacity to allow for better physical distancing between patients.
The state’s medical director, Dr. Tony Holohan, warned that the spread of Covid-19 was out of control and that the disease’s trajectory was rapidly deteriorating. He added that the number of hospitalized patients was growing faster than the exponential growth models predicted.
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