1,100 extra track and trace staff ‘not used’
HSE admits it did not deploy trained workers after system collapsed because the ‘country was not in lockdown’
THE HSE has admitted that it had access to an extra 1,100 trained contact tracers when its own system collapsed but insists it couldn’t ask them to help because the country wasn’t in lockdown.
Instead, around 2,000 people were told to do their own contact tracing amid the chaos leading up to Ireland’s second lockdown.
The health authority made the admission this weekend just days after its head of Covid testing and tracing, Niamh O’Beirne, apologised to those people who were instructed to carry out DIY contact tracing.
According to the senior HSE official, the health authority believed telling people to do their own tracing ‘was deemed the only viable option in order to deal with the most recent cases quickly’.
And when she issued the apology at an Oireachtas Health Committee meeting this week, the Covid testand-trace boss insisted asking people infected with the virus to let others know about their sickness was the best way of ensuring the crucial information was passed on as quickly as possible.
However, when the Irish Mail on Sunday reminded the HSE that at the start of the pandemic more than 1,700 public servants were trained in contact tracing, the health authority insisted it could only access all of these staff if the country was in a lockdown.
The country has been at Level 5 lockdown since just after midnight on Thursday, October 21.
Two days earlier the Government had announced the country would be going into the current lockdown.
In a detailed statement issued to the MoS last night, the HSE explained: ‘In March of this year the HSE trained in excess of 1,700 from across the civil and public service in contact tracing. Because contact tracing requires at least 30% of tracers to have a clinical background (or equivalent experience), the model the HSE adopted was mainly with the universities.
‘Although over 1,700 were trained, only 600 people were deployed as this provided the necessary capacity to meet the demands of the first wave. At the peak of the virus in mid-April there were an average of 220 people contact tracing each day. As the number of confirmed cases reduced in May, the lockdown started to be lifted and the staff who were working with the HSE on contact tracing starting returning to their substantive roles.
‘By early June, the number of cases per day was low, and the HSE consolidated its contact tracing operation in a single Contact Tracing Centre (CTC) in Galway.
‘All staff who were available to the HSE for contact tracing had returned to their substantive roles, and the HSE had a core team in Galway to support the contact tracing requirements. The HSE also developed an escalation plan to deal with future surges in confirmed cases.
‘Over the August bank holiday weekend there was a surge in cases, and the HSE had to deploy all phases of its escalation plan simultaneously. By the 9th of August UCD’s CTC was operational, and by the end of August there were eight CTCs operational around the
country. The HSE has continued to scale up its contact tracing operation since the August bank holiday weekend.
‘As the country was not in lockdown, the HSE did not have access to the staff who were available in the first wave, with the exception of the Defence Forces. The HSE has developed a Test and Trace programme to have standing capacity for all aspects of testing and tracing. The initial version of this plan envisaged 500 contact tracers. With the significant increase in confirmed cases, that number has now been revised to 800 people.
‘The recruitment process for contact tracers commenced on the 7th of September. By Friday 30th of October 299 people have been
recruited and on-boarded (deployed to a contact tracing centre). It will continue until all 800 people are recruited.’
But Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Trinity College, Dr Tomás Ryan, pictured, says there is no public confidence that the mistakes made by the HSE, Department of Health and Government, over the past six months will be rectified.
Dr Ryan said: ‘My concern is that if we haven’t managed to get things under control in six months, what are we doing to get this under control in the next six weeks.
‘I think there needs to be a completely new attitude towards how we manage this. The reality is the whole test, trace, isolate situation needs to happen within three days of symptoms max.
‘We’re nowhere near that and we never were. Testing has always been too slow, tracing is getting out of hand, logistics is inefficient and we need a new way of doing this.’
‘600 deployed to meet demands of first wave’
‘No confidence that all mistakes will be rectified’