The number of patients in Irish hospitals with Covid-19 is 68 per cent higher than it was two weeks ago, as the health service faces into its worst-ever winter for overcrowding.
There were 626 people with confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Irish hospitals as of 8am on Saturday. This is lower than in recent days, but considerably higher than two weeks ago on December 11th, when there were 372 Covid patients.
The number of Covid patients in intensive care is also beginning to creep up. There were 32 in ICU on Friday at 11.30am, up from six two weeks earlier.
Figures for those waiting on trolleys were not updated on Christmas Eve, but stood at 360 on Friday morning, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives’ Organisation’s (INMO) trolleywatch.
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This is down from 760 earlier in the week, but the number of people waiting on trolleys for the year has already surpassed the record level recorded in 2019.
Overcrowding in both adult and children hospitals is being driven by high levels of respiratory viruses, with flu and Covid in resurgence and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) remaining at near record levels. All the signs point to the health service coming under extreme pressure in the post-Christmas period.
Last week, the Health Service Executive (HSE) established a National Crisis Management Team (NCMT) to oversee the health service response to the surge of winter virus infections which the executive said is “expected to bring the highest pressure on the State’s health service that has ever been seen in the coming weeks”.
The NCMT met twice last week and will operate throughout the Christmas period, the HSE said.
However, Phil Ní Sheaghdha, general secretary of the INMO, said the ED taskforce must be reconvened “urgently” to inform the work of the crisis management team.
“The ED Taskforce which has representatives with stakeholders outside of HSE management including trade unions, Department of Health officials, senior clinicians and patient advocates should meet immediately. The Minister for Health should make it his absolute priority to attend,” Ms Ní Sheaghda said.
“The members we represent, and their clinical colleagues are very angry where they have been left to try to provide care in really unsafe environments.”
Ms Ní Sheaghda said its members and the patients in their care are “dealing with the consequences of a minimalistic, hands-off approach”.
“The newly established National Crisis Management Team’s work must be informed by the experiences of those who directly interact with our creaking health service every day, that is why the ED Taskforce must meet urgently,” she added.
The HSE has made arrangements to take space in a number of private hospitals, including St Vincent’s and the Mater in Dublin, as it attempts to deal with surging numbers of people falling ill with respiratory infections.
The HSE has also agreed with GPs’ representatives to run extra clinics in the days after Christmas to help ease pressures on hospital as demand rises again.
Dr Diarmuid Quinlan, medical director of the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP), said the Government should invest more resources in primary care as a means of reducing the number of people attending hospital emergency departments.
Many patients who are unable to obtain GP appointments are attending hospitals instead, Dr Quinlan said, adding that a recent survey by the OECD, published earlier this month, identified capacity problems within the primary care sector.
“The OECD report stated quite clearly that ‘avoidable hospital admissions remain relatively high for conditions like asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease which are largely treatable in primary care’ and that is most assuredly the case,” he said.
Dr Quinlan said the OECD report also correctly identified the fact “the elevated bed occupancy rates have been a feature of acute hospitals in Ireland for some time” and that this in part reflected the pressure on hospitals caused by limited community care.
“If we had more capacity [in primary care], like five years ago and you rang our surgery up to 4pm, we would see you on the same day and that took a very substantial workload from the emergency department – now we can’t and that contributes to greater numbers going to the emergency departments,” he said.
“Our ability to see people who are acutely unwell and manage them in the community has been eroded. Some of the problem in emergency departments is if people can’t get to see their GP, they are more likely to go to the emergency department, therefore we need substantially more GPs.”
