Patients fearful of appointments at major hospital

Beaumont closes three wards due to Covid outbreak

‘Virus could be the end of me’

PATIENTS waiting to be seen at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital have expressed fears about attending their appointments due to an outbreak of Covid-19.

Beaumont has closed three wards after three patients and two staff there tested positive.

At least ten staff are believed to be self-isolating.

One out-patient, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Irish Daily Mail that she intends on cancelling her appointment due to fears of contracting Covid-19 at the hospital.

She said: ‘I’ve always dreaded going into hospitals as you never know what you’re going to pick up, but when I heard of the outbreak at Beaumont I decided to reschedule my appointment for the next week or two.

‘I’m in the vulnerable category so if I pick up this virus it could be the end of me.’

An email alerting staff to the outbreak over a week ago included the subject line: ‘Covid is back.’

A second email sent to consultants last weekend said an ‘increasing number of doctors’ were either at home sick with Covid or are being asked to self-isolate due to being a close contact.

It said the hospital ‘continues to be severely affected’ by the virus, and CPE – a bacterial infection.

Word of the outbreak has caused particular concern among some of the hospital’s patients. This is despite Beaumont implementing numerous safety measures to minimise the spread of the disease.

It has also introduced new infection controls and asked its staff to minimise their visits to multiple wards.

Healthcare workers make up a third of all Covid-19 cases in Ireland, with the majority contracting the virus during the peak of the pandemic in April.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1 yesterday, Laura Durcan, a rheumatology specialist at Beaumont, said that testing of staff and patients was widespread there.

‘That is something in our hospital which is a success, but should probably be replicated across multiple hospitals,’ she said.

Professor Bill Tormey, a chemical pathology consultant at Beaumont Hospital told the Sunday Independent yesterday that the cases inside the hospital were expected but ‘worrying’.

‘If the virus continues to spread in the community, there will inevitably be outbreaks in hospitals. These cases suggest we may be in serious trouble over the winter unless we can curtail the current level of spread,’ he said.

Meanwhile, the HSE’s Chief Clinical Officer, Dr Colm Henry, has said that it is vital that Ireland avoids an ‘overwhelmed hospital system’ over the coming weeks amid an increasing number of Covid-19 cases.

In an interview on Newstalk’s On the Record yesterday, Dr Henry said that the approach taken to acute care and elective surgery would undoubtedly look different than it did during the early stages of the pandemic when most services were suspended.

‘We cannot face an overwhelmed hospital system and we cannot face the levels of congestion in emergency departments that we saw in previous years,’ he said.

‘The HSE and the government are working to develop a more nuanced deal with individual private hospitals this winter to create a surge capacity to cope with any increase in Covid-19 cases.’

The Department of Health yesterday confirmed that another 138 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19. This brings the total number of cases in Ireland to 29,627 since the start of the pandemic outbreak in February.

The figures come amid concern about the number of medical professionals contracting Covid-19.

Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn has urged health professionals not to go into work if they are experiencing symptoms.

Speaking to colleagues during a video conference hosted by NUIG, Dr Glynn admitted he had gone to work while symptomatic in the past and that many in the medical profession had also.

He told them: ‘We all did it, we have all done it, regularly, but I would plead with people not to do that this winter.

‘We simply cannot afford to have people going in to work this winter if there is any suggestion of Covid.

‘I would ask people to take particular care, particularly now as more pressure comes on the system,’ he said.