HOSPITAL FAILED TO NOTIFY ON 300 CASES OF COVID

Full explanation demanded over revelation

A HOSPITAL failed to notify health authori- ties of almost 300 cases of coronavirus within legal time frames.

All the cases, some of which date back to mid-March, were reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre in one go yesterday.

And that resulted in the daily tally of confirmed Covid-19 cases announced being significantly higher than those of recent days.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony

Holohan stressed that the 426 cases reported yesterday were not evidence of a ‘new wave’ of infection, insisting that almost 300 related to the batch of unreported test results from the one hospital.

However, Labour Party leader Alan Kelly said: ‘We need a full explanation about what happened

here, why this only came out now, and an audit of all hospitals and healthcare facilities is needed to ensure there no other instances.’

Dr Holohan, who did not name the hospital, told the daily Covid-19 briefing that inquiries were ongoing to establish what had gone wrong and to make sure it had not happened in any other hospital.

The overall number of confirmed cases rose to 23,827 after the 426 were added.

A further ten Covid-19 related deaths were also announced yesterday, taking the death toll to 1,506. Dr Holohan said the unreported batch, and the distribution of those cases across the last two months, did not give cause to alter any conclusions about the virus’s spread in the country as a whole.

But he added: ‘That’s not me saying that this is okay. We want to encourage appropriate reporting and timely reporting and comprehensive reporting, a high standard of collection of all the key information in respect of all the cases and to have that reported to us in as timely a way as possible.’ He said that had been happening in the country ‘for the most part’.

He highlighted that the requirement to notify the authorities of infectious diseases was in legislation dating back to 1947. ‘The vast majority of hospitals have taken the responsible and legally mandated action to report these cases,’ he added.

But it was not the time to talk about the ‘consequences’ for those responsible for the delayed reporting, he said, insisting it was more important to establish the facts and make sure it would not happen again.

He could not be certain the required contact tracing had been carried out for the cases who had tested positive in the hospital.

‘I would like to think the contact tracing necessary in the hospital environment by the occupational health teams might have been carried out but I don’t know that as a fact,’ he said. The Cabinet will meet today to discuss whether to proceed to Phase One of the lockdown exit plan scheduled for Monday. Ministers will consider advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team, which met yesterday to finalise its recommendation.

Dr Holohan, who chairs the Nphet, declined to indicate what recommendation the team had made. Earlier yesterday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the Government is ‘increasingly confident’ that Ireland will be able to move to Phase One on Monday. ‘This virus is a fire in retreat. We must quench its every spark and stamp out every ember,’ he said.