Up to 60,000 nursing home patients and staff to be tested

As many as 60,000 patients and staff in 550 nursing homes are to be tested for Covid-19 in a bid to suppress the virus.

HSE chief executive Paul Reid said that as of this weekend, there were 248 public and private nursing homes where there was either a confirmed or suspected case of Covid-19.

A total of 4,000 tests were to carried out over the weekend, he said.

“So 60% do not have outbreaks, 40% do,” according to Mr Reid. Some 247 of these locations have been supplied with PPE, he added. It was made clear that of the 248 nursing where Covid-19 has been detected, two thirds were private facilities and the remainder were public.

There are a total of 27 labs doing testing for the Health Service Executive. Twenty-six are based in Ireland, including hospitals, the National Virus Reference Laboratory and Enfer.

He also said that the backlog for Covid-19 testing had been “eliminated”. “There is a zero backlog,” he added.

They are carrying out about 1,000 lab tests per day, Mr Reid said, with 60% of all tests processed in Ireland and the remainder done in Germany.

At the briefing, Dr Colm Henry, HSE chief clinical officer, said he could not say the decision by the chief medical officer not to shut nursing homes at the commencement of the outbreak was a mistake.

He did say the decisions are being taken in real-time with what is an unprecedented pandemic where assumptions are evolving constantly, he said.

“We know much more than we did even a few weeks ago,” he said.

The primary focus for testing is long-term residential care facilities, reporters were told.

Between Saturday and today, 4,000 tests were completed for staff and residents in long-term facilities. In the region of 2,000 tests were carried out yesterday.

Of long-term residential care facilities, 354 have no confirmed or suspect Covid-19 cases. In total, 575 registered nursing homes are registered with Hiqa; 455 are private facilities and 120 are public.

The briefing heard that out of 70,000 registers of interest from retired health staff, the HSE has recruited and is in the process of offering or offered contracts to 1,500 applicants through the “be on call for Ireland” process.

It comprises 345 nursing and midwives, 280 doctors, and about 280 healthcare assistants among a range of frontline care supports recruited.

When pressed, it emerged that just 75 nursing staff have been fully screened and deemed eligible to work.

Dr Colm Henry said there are seeing “signs of stabilisation” in terms of the numbers of new patients being admitted to acute hospitals. He added there is still capacity in ICU units.

“We are scaling up in anticipation of any surge,” Dr Henry added. He said: “Our greatest challenge is outbreaks in long-term or residential care settings.”