'Extraordinarily high' number of patients puts pressure on University Hospital Limerick

Officials said one of the problems is that UHL's emergency department is the only one for Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary

On Tuesday alone, University Hospital Limerick treated 255 people at its Emergency Department, File photo: Don Moloney

While there is "relief” across the health service as Covid-19 cases and admissions continue to fall, HSE officials have warned that many hospitals are still under severe pressure.

University Hospital Limerick, in particular, is still seeing “extraordinarily high” numbers of patients, according to HSE chief operations officer Anne O’ Connor. On Tuesday alone, the hospital treated 255 people at its Emergency Department.

She described the numbers attending for the month of January as “extraordinarily high” and said, unlike some other hospitals, the number of people needing to be admitted is also increasing.

“Limerick are admitting more people than the big Dublin hospitals,” she said, comparing it to Tallaght Hospital and St James. So far this year the ED at UHL has seen 1,592 people, with 505 of them admitted to the hospital.

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Ms O'Connor conceded that one of the problems is that UHL provides the only emergency department for the whole hospital group which covers Limerick, Clare and North Tipperary.

The hospital is now using Croom hospital as an overflow for medical patients, and a surge policy is in place, meaning patients in need of a bed are temporarily placed in other areas of the hospital. This in turn means those wards are not being used for their original purpose.

There are also many Covid-19 outbreaks in Limerick nursing homes, which Ms O’ Connor said is delaying the discharge of elderly patients from the hospital. There are close to 300 people waiting to be discharged from hospitals around the country, up from around 50 at the end of December, she said.

Meanwhile, there were 71 Covid-patients in ICUs yesterday, the lowest it has been since November 6. In total, there are 708 patients with the virus in hospitals, the lowest since January 2.

HSE CEO Paul Reid said they estimate just 53% of Covid patients now were admitted because of the virus, with 43% asymptomatic and admitted for other reasons although they are still infectious.

Referring to the weekend lifting of most restrictions, he said “that has given our own staff quite significant relief” but he cautioned Covid-19 “has impacted very significantly on healthcare across the country”. He predicted "a long tail" to the impacts including on waiting lists and hospital overcrowding.

Damien McCallion, HSE lead on testing and tracing, said although more older people are getting Covid this month, the severity of the illness is reduced due to the high booster uptake. Overall the positivity rate has dropped to 48% from a high of over 55% although he noted the rate of decrease has slowed in recent days.

“The trajectory is clearly downwards,” he said.

At national level 48% of all older people’s centres are experiencing Covid-19 outbreaks, and the positivity rate is now 5.5%. However referring to booster uptake in other age groups, he said: “We are seeing a slight slowdown in this”.

Over 93,000 of the 480,000 children aged five to 11 are now vaccinated, and they expect this to continue at a slower rate than for older people. The “vast majority” of the 10,000 high-risk children are vaccinated now, he said.

He said “over 200,000 doses” of vaccine expired without being used, and this remains a challenge. Any vaccines already out in the centres or with GPs and pharmacists must be used within 30 days and cannot be donated abroad, he said.

The HSE is keen to see everyone eligible consider vaccination before the end of February as that is when remaining restrictions will be reconsidered, he said. From next week anyone travelling in the EU will not have their vaccine certificate accepted unless it is less than nine months since their last shot.