Covid-19: HSE seeking new private hospital deal for winter surge

Paul Reid welcomed the earlier decline of Covid-19 patients in hospital but said it "was too early to be a trend". Picture: Sasko Lazarov / Photocall Ireland

The HSE is working on a new deal with private hospitals to cope with surge capacity due to Covid-19 for the winter.

Its Chief Clinical Officer, Dr Colm Henry said it would be a different deal to the one struck with private hospitals back in March. 

Dr Henry said: "Absolutely, we need the private hospitals. Not the same deal as the first time. We need a more individual deal. 

"If needs be we can lean into additional surge capacity in our public units with our own public staff, our own expert staff that we have trained, recruited, employed and so on. 

"In the private hospital system there are facilities, there are acute beds, there are elective facilities, there is very good efficient elective work."

Currently, 238 people with Covid-19 are being treated in Irish hospitals this morning.

This has increased since yesterday morning when the figure was 234 - while last night the number of patients had dipped to 214. 30 patients with the disease are being treated in Intensive Care Units (ICUs).

Commenting on the earlier fall in hospitalisations, HSE chief executive Paul Reid tweeted that it is "too early to be a trend but sometimes we need it."

Too early to be a trend but sometimes we need it. The number of people in hospital with #COVID19 came down last night from 234 to 214 and those in ICU held at 30. Let's all continue to put our defences up and make it a trend and turn this around. @HSELive

— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) October 15, 2020

The new data comes as three border counties move to Level 4 restrictions in response to rising cases as well as in response to increased restrictions in Northern Ireland. 

Former HSE director-general Tony O'Brien said all the new measures are necessary due to the crisis across the island of Ireland.

"Given the incidence of Covid that we are seeing now across all nine counties of Ulster, I think it was entirely appropriate last night for the government to follow yesterday's decision by the Northern Executive and escalate our protective measures in all of those counties.  

"Evidence does suggest that we are dropping our guard when meeting people in our homes so asking people not to meet each other in our homes seems to be a sensible precaution as well," Mr O'Brien said. 

The patient data comes as Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan move to level four from 12 midnight tonight until November 10.

Speaking about the decision after last night's Cabinet meeting, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said "things may indeed get worse before they get better".

“We are living in very difficult times and that things may indeed get worse before they get better," said Mr Martin

"But this Government is prepared to do everything in its power to protect lives and public health, while working to minimise the damage to the economy and help businesses stay afloat, so that we can get back to doing what they do best." 

Yesterday there was 1,095 cases of Covid-19 reported in Ireland and five new deaths. 

Dublin again had the highest number of cases with 246, followed by Meath with 185, 128 in Cavan, 118 in Cork, and 63 in Kildare. The remaining 342 cases were spread across the remaining counties.

In the last 14 days, Cork has had 1,137 cases — second only to Dublin with 2,498.

The daily number of cases in Cork has increased 10-fold since mid-September to reach 147 on Monday and 141 on Tuesday this week.