Almost 2,000 nursing home staff on leave due to Covid-19

Over 570 outbreaks have occurred in nursing homes and community hospital or long stay units since January 3.

Almost 2,000 nursing home staff are on leave due to Covid-19, including workers from public, private, and voluntary homes.

As revealed by the HSE, there are Covid-19 open outbreaks in 181 nursing homes across the country. In the week from January 17 to January 23, a total of 27 new nursing home and five community hospital/long stay unit outbreaks were notified, according to figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC). 

In a parliamentary question, Fergus O'Dowd asked Mary Butler, minister of state at the Department of Health, if information is available on whether nursing homes are observing the recommendations of the nursing home expert panel report. 

One of the 86 recommendations in the report was that "for the next 18 months or until the declaration of the end of the global pandemic by WHO, staff employed by a nursing home should be precluded from working across multiple sites and adequate single-site employment contracts should be put in place to support this". 

However, Ms Butler said these recent outbreaks are placing significant challenges on nursing homes and that staffing, “particularly nursing staff”, remains a challenge. 

Since January 3, there have been 573 outbreaks in nursing homes and community hospital or long stay units, with 12,046 linked laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 cases, HPSC data confirmed.

Movement of staff

A spokesperson for the HSE said: “The movement of staff between facilities should be minimised; it is recognised, however, that staff may have to work across multiple sites to ensure service provision.” 

The spokesperson outlined a number of requirements that need to be adhered to, should this take place, including that staff working in a facility that is experiencing an outbreak should not work in any other facility, and relevant staff should be asked to confirm that they are not currently working in a facility where there is an outbreak. 

The National Public Health Emergency Team also requires that all staff have their temperature measured twice a day, once being at the start of each shift.