The chief executive of one of the country’s largest hospital groups, UL Hospitals, has warned the pattern of Covid-19 is rapidly worsening across the mid-west region, with 427 of staff unavailable for work due to the virus.
According to the latest HSE figures, there are 96 confirmed cases of coronavirus at the group’s main hospital, University Hospital Limerick (UHL).
This a rise of 36 cases at the hospital in a 48-hour period.
Over a four-day period, from last Tuesday to Friday, the number of staff unavailable to work within the UL Hospital Group had jumped from 140 to 427.
Limerick Fine Gael councillor Daniel Butler said he was concerned the city and surrounding areas will exceed their intensive care bed capacity within days: “The scale of transmission at the moment is hugely significant and we’ve seen, day by day, increases in admittance to ICU and into the hospital system, I’d be very worried about ICU bed capacity.”
“My gut tells me that we might exceed bed capacity next week, that would be my real concern, the figures are only going in one way at the moment, and I think we could be looking at dipping into surgical capacity that the HSE has secured,” Cllr Butler said.
In an e-mail sent to politicians on Friday, Colette Cowan, the chief executive of the UL Hospitals group, warned that “the pattern of the disease across the region over the holiday period has been one of rapid deterioration” and the 14-day incidence rate across the region had also “increased significantly”.
Incidence rate
“As of January 5th, Limerick’s 14-day incidence rate was 1113.4 per 100,000; The national average was 674.36 per 100,000.
“This is the type of exponential growth we had hoped never to see and will mean an increase in hospitalisations and critical care admissions in the weeks ahead,” Ms Cowan warned.
The group’s crisis teams continue to plan and put into effect responses to the ongoing public health emergency, as “the number of patients being admitted with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 has increased significantly”.
Ms Cowan advised politicians the total number of Covid-19 patients within the group as of last Wednesday “exceeds the maximum experienced during the peak of the first wave”.
In recent days we have been admitting about 10 new Covid patients per day
Covid and non-Covid critical care patients are being treated on two floors at the hospital designated for intensive care and high dependency patients as part of UHL’s plan to open/convert additional critical care beds as required.
“Our staff retrained and redeployed to support this critical care surge capacity during the first wave and are ready to do so again when required if demand exceeds current capacity,” Ms Cowan said.
An additional six high dependency beds, funded for UHL under the Winter Plan 2020/2021, “are available for use immediately in response to the surge”.
The majority of scheduled surgery and outpatient appointments across the Group, bar University Maternity Hospital Limerick, has been deferred to outbreaks of the virus.
