Peak of Covid impact on hospitals could be four weeks away

Emergency department nurse Karen McGowan said patients can collapse in the waiting room where she works as they have waited so long to be seen. Picture: Dan Linehan

Nurses and doctors working in emergency departments have called on the Government to reintroduce mandatory mask-wearing and ask people to work from home to protect the “fragile” health system.

There are 1,535 people with Covid-19 in hospitals on Thursday, and it is “nonsense” to downplay the impact of this on other patients, a health union briefing for politicians and media was told.

The peak of this wave of infections could be three to four weeks away, unofficial HSE modelling shared with the Emergency Department Task Force shows, said Phil Ní Sheaghdha, co-chair of the task force and Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) general secretary.

Emergency department nurse, and president of the INMO, Karen McGowan said patients can collapse in the waiting room where she works as they have waited so long to be seen.

“The environment we work in is no longer safe. As emergency staff we feel totally abandoned by the people who are making decisions,” Ms McGowan said.

“It is horrendous, we have a huge elderly population that we are trying to provide care for. 

"They are becoming more agitated, they are progressing, they are becoming delirious in our emergency departments because it is a very busy environment, lights are on 24/7. It is really horrendous.”

INMO president and emergency department nurse Karen McGowan said the environment that she and her colleagues work in is no longer safe.

Fergal Hickey, spokesman for the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine said: “We seem to have forgotten the idea of flattening the curve. The healthcare system currently is not coping in this situation.”

An ED consultant for 27 years at Sligo University Hospital, he said the situation in March is as dangerous as he has ever seen it.

“I think that the decision to step Nphet down was premature, the decision to remove some of the restrictions was premature,” he said, referring to the ending of mask-wearing on February 28. 

The two unions wrote on Thursday to chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan, warning of "significant risks" to patients and staff.   

"Immediate stronger public health measures are needed — not doing so and abandoning the hospitals to the inevitable will lead to unnecessary preventable higher levels of illness requiring hospital admission and sadly, for some, a fatal outcome," the letter, seen by the Irish Examiner, said. 

Ms Ní Sheaghdha said 12 ED nurses recently met with health minister Stephen Donnelly, and told him conditions for patients are simply “miserable”. 

“This is the worst March we have ever recorded. The myth that is out there every March is bad, is just not true,” she said.

“We have 11,001 patients recorded this month (on trolleys).” 

This compares with 4,126 last March, she said.