Mercy University Hospital ward shut as elderly patients contract flu

An influenza outbreak among patients led to a Cork City hospital yesterday closing one of its wards.

Cork’s Mercy Hospital (MUH) closed St Mary’s ward to visitors after nine elderly inpatients contracted the flu virus.

The ward is an acute admissions unit for older people.

Michael Dineen, the hospital’s INMO (Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation) representative, said the closure was very worrying as the staff were already “under huge pressure”.

“This is a further example of how inundated our health services are,” he said.

“In the winter, these types of outbreaks are nearly inevitable and the system needs to be able to cope.”

Mr Dineen said the INMO had identified a need for an additional 185 hospital beds for Cork to alleviate overcrowding in hospitals.

He suggested the beds should be a combination of acute beds and “step-down” or transitional beds for elderly patients no longer in need of acute care.

Other wards in the Mercy Hospital currently remain open, but members of the public should avoid any visits if they have experienced flu-like symptoms in the last four days, a hospital spokesman said.

He also urged people who feel they may have contracted the virus to visit their GP instead of presenting themselves at the hospital’s emergency department, where 19 patients are currently on trolleys, according to the INMO’s trolley watch database.

Meanwhile, national figures show 415 patients are currently on trolleys with 325 in emergency departments and 90 on trolleys in wards.

Beaumont Hospital is the most overcrowded with a total of 44 patients on trolleys in its emergency department and in wards, while St Vincent’s University Hospital has 36 patients on trolleys in its emergency department.

Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda and University Hospital Limerick both have 30 patients on trolleys.