‘A THREAT TO NON-COVID SERVICES IN HOSPITALS’
THE number of people in hospital could rise to 2,000 later this month with up to 400 people in ICU unless drastic action to curb the spread of the virus is taken, health chiefs have warned.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan, warned that the provision of non-Covid care in hospitals is now under threat with non-urgent services to be scaled back from tomorrow.
His warning came against the backdrop of a record 6,110 new confirmed cases and six deaths.
There are currently 776 patients in hospitals across the country with Covid-19, with 70 people in intensive care units – an increase of eight on the previous day. There have been 92 hospitalisations in the past 24 hours alone.
And there are now 3,000 hos
‘The numbers are unsustainable’
pital staff who are out of work because of Covid-19, either through infection or as a close contact of someone else.
Dr Holohan has urged people to step up their efforts against the virus, saying health chiefs ‘haven’t been as concerned at any point in the pandemic as we are right now’.
Last night’s National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) briefing heard that the number of people in intensive care units could rise to between 200 and 400 by the middle of this month if no action is taken. Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, Professor Philip Nolan, said that if the restrictions do not have the full effect needed ‘we could be seeing somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500 people in hospital towards the middle of January’. Dr Holohan said: ‘ We simply can’t deal with levels of infection like this, as an acceptable level of infection. ‘This is a really, really serious situation and one that demands immediate action. The numbers are unsustainable and ultimately are going to lead to a very, very significant mortality rate that we are going to see, unfortunately, over the course of the month of January.
‘But we still have an opportunity to, as a country, come together and take action, to turn this around.’
Anyone experiencing flu-like symptoms is now advised that they are unlikely to have anything other than Covid-19 and must self-isolate.
Meanwhile, Dr Liam Woods, HSE national director of acute operations, said the staff absences were affecting the operation of hospitals right across the country.
He said that they were curtailing non-essential services in adult hospitals in order to cope with increasing Covid-19 admissions from tomorrow, subject to a weekly review.