30% of all nursing homes infected by Covid-19

About 30% of all nursing homes in Ireland have been infected by Covid-19, it has emerged.
30% of all nursing homes infected by Covid-19

About 30% of all nursing homes in Ireland have been infected by Covid-19, it has emerged.

Of the 335 outbreaks of Covid-19 in residential care centres, 196 were in nursing homes where both staff, as well as residents, were infected.

HSE chief operations officer, Anne O’Connor, said there are more than 550 nursing homes but just 20% are run by the health authority. The HSE only began working with private nursing homes since the end of January but there is an “absolute requirement” for the health authority to do more, she said.

“So for us since the beginning of Covid-19 we have been putting our arms around private nursing in a way we have not done before. We would never have had a formal relationship with private nursing homes prior to this,” Ms O’’Connor said.

The Health Information and Quality Authority would have interacted with the nursing homes, she said at a media briefing: “We would have supported them (nursing homes) in relation to some health service provision but not in the way that we are doing now.”

The kind of support now being provided by the HSE is on a different scale altogether, she said.

Ms O’’Connor said that it was only towards the end of March that the HSE started receiving more requests from private nursing homes for personal protective equipment. Before Covid-19 arrived in Ireland private nursing homes used their own supplies of PPE.

However, over the last two weeks, the demand for PPE from nursing homes has increased significantly but no restrictions has been placed on supplies, she emphasised.

Ms O’’Connor said they want to enhance testing on-site for both staff and residents in residential care settings to contain the spread of the virus.

They are now looking at testing everybody in nursing homes where there are confirmed cases: “We are now scaling up to be able to test all residents, and staff where there are confirmed outbreaks.”

Asked when testing in nursing homes will be ramped up, Ms OConnor said scaling up testing will begin at “facilities with particular concern.”

They are also looking at having nursing homes involved in taking swabs to test for Covid-19.

It also emerged that the health authority has redeployed 61 people to nursing homes.

In some cases, staff from the National Ambulance Service have helped nursing homes manage a crisis point.

Ms O’’Connor said response teams will be available in all areas and there will be specialist guidance so that they can continue to function: “As you can understand the pace of this and the scale of this is something that is a huge challenge for us. There is no doubt about it.”

Ms O’’Connor said they have not yet reached a stage where doctors have to be redeployed to nursing homes.

Nursing homes are supported by GPs so it is about having sufficient medical support available.

Ms O’’Connor also confirmed that the HSE has block-booked the Citywest Hotel and Conference Centre in Dublin until the end of December but hopes it will not be needed.

The facility is being used as a self-isolation and step-down facility to free up space in acute hospitals.

HSE chief clinical officer, Dr Colm Henry, said detecting a change in older people’’s condition is particularly challenging.

For most of the population, the symptoms of Covid-19 would be cough, shortness of breath, fever, and feeling generally unwell.

Older people do not show some of these signs because their immune system is weakened.

Dr Henry also said “time would tell” if action should have been taken earlier regarding nursing homes.

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