It’s hard to tell your children they can’t have hugs or kisses
No contact tracing, test centres overwhelmed: One family’s ordeal as they were left to handle their Covid crisis alone after HSE failed to act
SURGING numbers and a contact-tracing disaster only served to heighten fears of those who had been diagnosed with Covid-19 last weekend. Here Tracey Coakley, a childcare worker from Co. Carlow, tells Seán O’Driscoll how the contract-tracing confusion left her terrified for the health of her seven-month-old baby...
ON Friday, October 9, the people of Ireland were getting worried. There were 617 coronavirus cases and five deaths that day, compared to 506 cases and one death the day before.
There seemed to be no end to the surging case numbers and the Government was at odds with the National Public Health Emergency Team over what to do about it.
In the Dáil, a debate was raging about NPHET’s recommendation the previous Sunday that Ireland should increase restrictions to Level 5 lockdown. The recommendation was ignored by the Government, who instead took the country up to Level 3.
That Friday, NPHET said it was not recommending any new restrictions as Ireland headed into the weekend but one of its officials went on RTÉ that day to warn people to take extra care in the following three days.
In Carlow, Tracey Coakley was preparing for her early afternoon switch. In the morning, she worked at Play Together, a pre- school attached to the Educate Together national school. At 1.15pm, the last of those children went home
The result came back – both positive
and then there was a break when the rooms were sanitised before the arrival of the after- school group who came in from Educate Together at 3pm.
Tracey had just come back from maternity leave and had a sevenmonth-old girl, Chloe, waiting for her at home. Normally during the summer the after- school group would run alongside a summer camp while parents were working, but this year they were both shut because of the coronavirus.
In late August as the children returned to their classrooms, Tracey was nervous about contracting coronavirus and bringing it back home to Chloe, despite the school’s many anti-Covid safety measures. The after-school group was divided up into three pods, as the HSE had recommended, and Tracey was minding one group of 22 children with a new colleague named Michelle.
On that Friday, October 9, the children from the after- school group were picked up by parents and school buses between 4pm and 6pm.
Among them was a little girl who went outside to wait for her school bus to arrive. The girl had spoken to Michelle earlier and now was having ‘general chit- chat’ with Tracey before boarding the bus and making her journey home.
But by the time Monday arrived, the little girl from the school bus was feeling unwell, as was one of her siblings. They were both tested on Tuesday, October 13. The following day, their family learned that they had both tested positive f or Covid- 19 and contacted the school.
On the morning of October 15, the HSE texted to say that Tracey and Michelle were close contacts and that they should get tested immediately.
The next day came the result Tracey was dreading – both she and Michelle had tested positive for the virus.
It was devastating news for Tracey. She was now worried for her partner, John, and her three children: seven-month-old Chloe, seven-year-old Brody and 13-yearold Ali. It was also devastating news f or the owner of Play Together, Eleanor Peters, who decided to shut down the preschool until after Halloween. Now her priority was getting help for her staff and teachers. She began calling the HSE that day. ‘It was quite slow and frustrating on Friday,’ she recalls.
‘I called the HSELive helpline and I was given a number in Dublin, so I called and it was some kind of nurse’s line. They said that there were no nurses available to
take our call, so I knew it was the wrong number.’
Worried, Eleanor made another call to the HSE Live helpline. ‘Someone called me back and said that I should wait for a public health official to call me before I informed anyone but I said, “I have to let parents know about this so that they can restrict their movements.”’
According to Eleanor, the person on the helpline told her that she shouldn’t do anything to panic parents but she argued that it was her duty to let them know.
Eleanor told the parents of the children in the groups and soon they were contacting her asking what they should do.
‘Some parents arranged their own tests, it took until the following Monday for the HSE to even call back,’ she said.
Tracey’s concerns for her own family were also growing and she began making numerous calls to the helpline over the weekend, seeking coronavirus tests for them but was told they had to be contact-traced first. ‘They told me they couldn’t arrange the test, and I should expect to be called by the HSE contact tracing team first,’ she said. But on Saturday, sevenmonth-old Chloe had become hot to touch and had a runny nose and Tracey was getting increasingly worried. Unable to wait any longer, John drove the baby to the Carlow testing centre while Tracey persisted in calling the HSE in the hope of getting a test for the rest of the family, while isolating herself in her room. ‘On Sunday, I called the HSE two or three times – I didn’t want to call them too many times because I didn’t want to sound too scaldy,’ she says. And on Monday, Chloe’s results confirmed the baby had Covid-19. ‘That’s when I really got worried,’ said Tracey. ‘I started calling the HSE more and more, hoping for a test for the rest of the family. I was really calling a lot on Monday and Tuesday.’
She called her Fianna Fáil TD, Jennifer Murnane O’Connor, who also began calling the HSE looki ng f or help. Something was clearly wrong with the contact tracing system – people couldn’t get tests unless they were contact-traced, yet nobody was calling from the contact tracing teams.
As both Jennifer and Tracey were repeatedly calling the HSE on Tuesday, news broke that the contract tracing system was overwhelmed at the weekend and that thousands of close contacts of Covid-19 cases were not traced or tested.
That evening, Taoiseach Micheál Martin received a text from one of his officials with a link to a newspaper article about the crisis. He said it was the first moment he knew that the system was no longer working.
That same evening, after the numerous phone calls from Ms Murnane O’Connor, a HSE official contacted Tracey l ooking for Chloe’s close contacts, which she supplied.
The HSE contacted John the next day, Wednesday, October 21, to let him know that he, Ali, and Brody were close contacts to his seven-month- old baby and that they should get tested.
By now, another problem had emerged. With so many cases breaking out in Carlow, the county’s testing centre at Tinryland GAA Club was full. John put Ali and Brody in his car and drove to the Kilkenny testing centre at Nowlan Park.
It was a very anxious wait when they got home, with John, Ali and Brody on one side of the house and Tracey on the other. John would give her Chloe for two or three hours a day but tried to keep the children separated from their mother. He has been looking after Chloe while wearing a mask and trying to keep her away from the other two children.
The next day, Thursday, at about 5pm, their GP called to say that the tests for John, Ali and Brody were all negative for coronavirus. It was a huge relief.
Tracey now spends her days watching Netflix and Amazon videos in her room, isolated from the family. ‘The kids talk to me from outside my room and sometimes they video call me,’ she says. ‘I did go downstairs and straight out to the back garden for some fresh air with Chloe.’
The most difficult part for her and John was ‘having to tell your children that they can’t have hugs or kisses from either parent for almost a week’.
‘If they had been tested earlier, at least one of us could have been in physical contact with the kids. My seven-year-old found it really hard not having any physical interaction with his parents as we are quite a close-knit family,’ said Tracey.
The principal of Carlow’s Educate Together, Simon Lewis, sees bigger problems in the system.
‘Everyone knows Ireland has the highest class sizes and most classrooms have limited ventilation. It’s a petri- dish scenario. Everyone working in schools wants to stay open. There are many solutions out there to help do this but the Government’s plan seems to be to keep their fingers crossed,’ he said.
He is now urging for a special tracing system for schools.
‘There simply needs to be a dedicated, fast tracing system for schools and childcare. The phone lines need to be open seven days a week until late in the evening and the people in there need to be familiar with the various nuances of schools,’ he said.
The HSE said it ‘cannot comment on individual cases or outbreaks as to do so would breach our duty of confidentiality’.
It said it is working to improve its contact tracing for schools.
‘In an effort to improve turnaround times for Covid-19 tests, the HSE began sending a text message to parents/guardians of children who have been identified as close contacts in schools.
‘ This new process ensures parent/guardians are informed as quickly as possible, allowing them to be aware of their child’s status and to take actions to care for them,’ it said.
‘It’s a petri dish scenario’