GPs support redirection of resources for Covid-19 testing from meat plants to community

Both doctors agreed with the call for the cancellation of family events with Dr O’Connor pointing out that “the virus loves when people get together, especially indoors. Ireland doesn’t tend to have small gatherings.” File picture: Martin Meissner/AP

Two general practitioners have said that the redirection of resources for testing from meat plants to the community was the correct thing to do.

Dr Ray Walley, who works in the Covid Centre in North Dublin, and Dr Nuala O’Connor, Covid lead with the Irish College of General Practitioners, were speaking on RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show.

Dr Walley said that the Covid hub had been busiest it had ever been in weeks, and that they were seeing more and more young people. 

He also defended the role of GPs in the process, following a suggestion on Wednesday by Dr Tómas Ryan of the School of Biochemistry and Immunology at Trinity College Dublin who had called for the removal of GPs from the testing system.

While the referral rate through GPs was very high, they were "successfully managing the process" and there would be "a loss of control of the system if it was opened up", as had happened in the UK and in France, he warned.

Dr Walley said he was delighted that resources had been redirected from an area with a low infection rate at present (meat plants) to an area where there was a higher infection rate – the community. 

He said: "There needed to be flexibility so the medical professionals could say ‘this is where the troops are needed.’"

“Speed trumps perfection,” he added.

Dr Nuala O’Connor pointed out that when there was a finite set of resources it made sense to direct services where they were most needed. 

“We need to be agile in our response,” she said.

She also said that GPs had noticed a huge increase in people calling about possible symptoms which had coincided with the return to school and that the increase in community testing was needed to know what was happening.

She said that the levels of infection in meat plants were under control and testing there was stopping for "just one week,” and that this was necessary to identify the pockets of community transmission. 

“If we had infinite resources then we could be testing everyone every week. 

"An increase in the turnaround time in testing would allow children to return to education and parents to return to work faster," she added.

Both doctors agreed with the call for the cancellation of family events with Dr O’Connor pointing out that “the virus loves when people get together, especially indoors. Ireland doesn’t tend to have small gatherings.”