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There is a “significant pipeline” of patients who may need intensive care facilities and this presents a “real challenge” for the hospital system, said HSE official Paul Reid.
Mr Reid said on Sunday there were 24 free intensive care beds statewide. There were 1,914 patients in hospitals with Covid-19, including 218 in intensive care units.
Mr Reid said eight hospitals had reached their peak capacity for patients requiring intensive care and some had had to be moved in recent days to other hospitals.
Speaking on the This Week show on RTÉ Radio One, he said that after speaking to consultants in this area, there had been significant differences in recent weeks in terms of “delayed departures” of patients from the units. intensive care and increased mortality.
Mr Reid said there were still 430 Covid-19 patients receiving intensive care in hospitals outside of intensive care units. He said about two-thirds of those patients would be released but a third may have to go to intensive care units or even die.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said on Saturday evening Ireland was starting to flatten the curve again “thanks to the solidarity shown by families and communities across the country”. The National Public Health Emergencies Team (Nphet) announced 77 more deaths of Covid-19 patients and reported 1,910 more cases of the disease, bringing the total number of cases recorded to date and the number to 186,184. total deaths in the pandemic to 2,947.
Saturday is the first time that the number of cases has fallen below 2,000 since January 1, even though the number of deaths from the disease remains high and hospitals in the Republic remain under great pressure.
But Mr Reid tweeted on Sunday morning that he “is struggling to maintain the levels of care we value and to save lives.” He said 650 patients with Covid-19 were receiving some level of intensive care, including 214 in intensive care and 436 in advanced respiratory support. “It’s not an Emergency Department crisis now, but it’s probably more critical than that,” he added. There were 1,893 people in hospital with coronavirus at 8 p.m. on Saturday.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said on Saturday that Ireland was facing Covid-19 restrictions for the first six months of the year and noted that an AstraZeneca vaccine supply problem would delay deployment to those over 70. He also said schools would not be fully open to all students before St. Patrick’s Day and confirmed that Cabinet will consider restrictions on overseas travel at its meeting this week.
Masks
The chief executive of HSE said on Sunday that higher-quality FFP2 masks are being provided to more staff in hospitals, as requested over the weekend by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organization.
He said the collection of such masks had increased from 130,000 per week to 1.3 million per week.
He said the HSE had “lowered the bar” on where these masks should be used on January 13. He said if risk dictated that these higher quality masks should be used, then they were available to staff. He said the HSE would strengthen its communication with the hospital system on this issue if necessary. He said the HSE had a good supply of these FFP2 masks from an Irish company.
Mr Reid also said the HSE would set up more extensive testing on hospital staff starting Jan. 27 using a supply of 500,000 antigen tests it had received.
He said the HSE was eager to see a resumption of close contact testing of Covid-19 cases, which was suspended several weeks ago due to the major spike in the numbers involved. However, he said it would have to see the number of cases drop below 2,000 on a sustained basis for a number of days for that to happen.
Mr Reid also said that by the end of Sunday residents and staff at all nursing homes would have received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, except for a very small number due to epidemics.
Mr Reid said plans to start vaccinating people over the age of 70 in the community would continue from mid-February, despite AstraZeneca’s announcement on Friday that there would be delays in the process. provision of supplies. “We’re not quite sure yet on the amounts in terms of how long it will take to complete this (process).”
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