Covid hospitalisations hit nine-month high

The Mater Hospital in Dublin has 74 Covid patients - the highest in the country. Picture: Sam Boal / RollingNews.ie

The number of Covid patients in hospital has reached a nine-month high with 684 people in hospital with the virus.

It is up 10% over the past week and 37% over the past fortnight.

The Mater Hospital in Dublin has 74 Covid patients - the highest in the country.

Latest figures show 126 patients are in intensive care with the virus - the highest figure since the end of February.

A consultant in infectious diseases says the high number of patients in hospital is "very disappointing".

Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Senior Lecturer Eoghan de Barra says it is "a very significant strain" on resources and will make life very difficult for the health service.

Dr de Barra says the number of Covid patients in ICU is edging up.

"The other telling part is that the people who get in to ICU with Covid, they don't exit ICU very promptly. Every single extra patient there might be there for weeks," said Dr de Barra.

"So we are building up pressure for the weeks ahead."

He said that hospitals are already restricting scheduled or elective activities with plans being put in place for further escalation in numbers.

Most hospitals have surge plans ready and Dr de Barra said he is concerned that these plans will have to be put into action in the coming weeks.

Speaking about cancellations hospitals are being forced to do, intensive care consultant Dr Andrew Westbrook described the cancellation of a transplant operation at the Mater Hospital last week as “symptomatic” of the crisis caused by the lack of ICU beds.

“That’s a very unfortunate situation, for the patient involved, for the patient’s family and for the donor and for the donor’s family,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

The cancellation was symptomatic of the fact that the intensive care system in Ireland was under-resourced.

There should be at least 550 ICU beds in the country, that was according to a report published 12 years ago, he said.

There had been a “slight increase” of 50 beds over the past year, there needed to be at least another 150 to 200 intensive care beds, that would just bring Ireland up to the “average” level in Europe.

“If we had that bed stock we could provide care for more acutely ill patients.” 

Dr Westbrook pointed out that for every intensive care bed there had to be a fully trained team including at least six nurses.