Wexford General closes Covid ward
POSITIVE PROGRESS AS ELECTIVE PROCEDURES SET TO RETURN TO HOSPITAL
AS the country begins to take its first tentative steps towards a return to normality this week, there is also cause for optimism at Wexford General Hospital as management have taken the positive step of closing down one of the designated Covid-19 wards. St Mary’s Ward had been opened up as a secondary Covid ward early last month, but with figures continuing to fall, it has now reverted to a regular ward, with St Bridget’s Ward now the only designated ward for the virus.
‘Thankfully St Mary’s Ward is now back to normal, which is really positive,’ said General Manager at the Hospital Ms Lily Byrnes. ‘We now have just one Covid-19 ward and we hope that this will be sufficient going forward.’
Further evidence of progress at the hospital is a return to scheduled elective procedures, which Ms Byrnes says will begin on a phased basis from this week. ‘We will undertake this process slowly and carefully,’ she said. ‘We will also have to await national guidelines, but we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to make a start later this week. People will be notified by phone or text of rescheduled appointments.’
The virus has certainly tested the resolve of the staff and management at Wexford General. Last month, there was an outbreak outside of the wards, which was followed by a spike in figures, cases across the county rising by more than 50 in the space of a week. Figures published by the Department of Health this week show a return to more manageable levels, with an increase of 12 cases and no increase at all on three of the seven days. The latest figures published yesterday (Monday) showed that Wexford is currently at 212 confirmed cases of the virus, many of whom will have already recovered.
Wexford remains towards the lower end of the spectrum for Covid-19, bested only by Waterford in terms of the lowest number of cases of Covid-19 per head of population. Ms
Byrnes puts this down to the speed in which measures were put in place and the excellent performance of the staff at the hospital.
‘I think we were quick out of the gates when it came to this,’ she said. ‘We quickly implemented a separate space for Covid patients and effectively made a hospital within a hospital. Obviously, it wasn’t without its problems. We had an outbreak, as have most hospitals, but thankfully the numbers we’re dealing with have remained low and we put the mechanisms in place to separate people early on.’
While the signs are starting to look very positive, Ms Byrnes and all the staff at Wexford General are urging the public not to get complacent as restrictions are relaxed slightly.
‘We would still urge people to follow the guidelines,’ she said. ‘The way we operate going forward will be on the assumption that the people we’re coming into contact with have it. That will mean we have people in full PPE and we won’t have a situation where people are waiting in waiting rooms together. It will change how everything is done.’