Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

This makes fûck all sense to me! Just give the admittance numbers for those actually admitted because of covid!! Nothing else!

This is a joke statement. They're trying to make it sound like 92% are there for treatment for Covid when in fact they are just saying 92% have symptoms. If they can sya that then surely they can say how many are in hospital primarily for Covid treatment.

it is a joke! Can’t be that hard to count how many actually admitted because they needed treatment for covid! Me looking at this now makes the hospital numbers pointless! How many are just getting paracetamol as treatment????

anyone else notice as well NPHET have been relatively quiet except for a few bits on Twitter? they obviously know the exact situation. They haven’t met in 3 weeks and no press conference in nearly 4 weeks. Which is good…

That tweet is taking the piss. Another "journalist" that hasn't got the balls to investigate and report on meaningful figures

The breakdown of the 92% is literally what people had asked about - admitted with vs. caught in hospital, or admitted + tested positive as a result of testing all on admission. Information that is likely retrievable within minutes in any competent system. 'Treated' is also rather vague as it could mean anything from taking paracetamol for those in for another reason but have mild symptoms nonetheless (that typically wouldn't need hospitalisation but they are there either ways), to the more obvious oxygen etc. for those completely struck down with the virus.

Like it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things because the main problem in the HSE is a capacity issue, not a COVID one, so the breakdown is meaningless really when its the total number for all reasons putting pressure on the system.

But it is just hilarious why there is such an issue with providing the info. Ah well, as I said, doesn't really matter.

Maybe he should shift some of his concern to the state of the health service that he's supposedly running

The pandemic has put the kybosh on that for now. All he has done to date is reorganise hospital groups and asked for loadsa money. They did manage to deal with 2,000 odd COVID cases in hospital in January, including 200 or so in ICU.

Increasing ICU capacity is not as simple as people think. It takes 2 years post-registration to train ICU nurses. Similarly, it takes 8 years post internship (ie post-degree) to fully train an intensivist. Time aside, it is impossible to recruit people to this area. It is high stakes, constant stress, with a burnout rate of 70% for ICU professionals. It is one of the few areas of medicine where there is regular vacancies waiting to be filled. Finally, the actual cost of keeping even 1 extra patient is astounding. People think that the government should just wave a wand and fix the ICU problem. It’s not that simple. And you are literally dealing with the sickest, most deranged patients in the hospital. A random nurse or doctor just cannot provide the quality of care that we would expect for a loved-one.

I was reacting to people’s comment that we should have upscaled our ICU capacity for the winter. If things were simple then they would be solved

1,758 cases, 248 in hospital and 48 in ICU.

Western healthcare systems aren't really built for epidemics, which is one of the reasons for all the problems the current epimedic is causing in hospitals.

But then again, it's been 18 months already so there has been time to adapt. And I'm still not too sure what our healthcare system is built for. Hopefully the situation doesn't get too much worse.

Let's use your timeline. We haven't done enough in the last 10-15 years to increase capacity. We have less capacity than the EU average and languish at the bottom of the pile. That you can try to defend this is all that is wrong with this country and why those in charge don't have to fear being held accountable. In April 2020 we had the 3rd lowest ICU capacity in the OECD. You think that is acceptable??

Definitions will vary. Not all critical care beds will mean the same thing across countries. The level of expertise of our ICU staff in Ireland is one of the highest in Europe, and I dare say the world. In some countries, after 4-5 years, they call them consultants. The care that our ICU nurses and doctors deliver is quality! We have very good outcomes for our ICU patients versus other countries.

They are actively increasing the numbers and the plan over the coming years is to increase further. This is not a problem solved over night.

Are you willing to go higher with the taxes to create more ICU beds? It certainly won’t be cheap!

Read an interesting article in the NYT today. There is a dearth of ICU staff in the US and they are struggling to find them. This is not a local problem!

I honestly don't think so. Reid is reflecting a relevant concern at this time. It's no different to other occasions of concern and cases will fall in due course. The positive briefing a few weeks back did mention treating COVID as a part of general public health in the same way as they do flu'. The emergency part of this is coming to an end and we'll be back to the usual HSE crisis management.

Their last ''roadmap-living with Covid'' has failed dramatically. It did not even get a chance to start.. Tony came back to office a day earlier and then shite hit the fan