Health authorities 'had not anticipated' rapid Covid-19 spread in nursing homes

The scale of infection of the coronavirus in nursing homes was not anticipated, according to a member of the National Public Health Emergency team.
Health authorities 'had not anticipated' rapid Covid-19 spread in nursing homes

- Additional reporting by Vivienne Clarke

The scale of infection of the coronavirus in nursing homes was not anticipated, according to a member of the National Public Health Emergency team.

It comes as eight residents of a Co Laois nursing home died from Covid-19 over the weekend.

Nine people aged between 66 and 84 died at the The Maryborough Centre for Psychiatry of Old Age in Portlaoise at the weekend - eight had tested positive for Covid-19.

The 17 remaining residents are being managed as if they have the virus, regardless of test results or the presence of symptoms.

The majority of the 413 clusters nationwide are in nursing homes.

Chair of NPHET’s Expert Advisory Group Dr Cillian De Gascun said the rapid spread in nursing homes was not anticipated.

Dr De Gascun told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny show: “I think the scale of the infection numbers in the nursing home setting was probably not something that was envisaged very early on.

"It wasn't something that we had seen from early stages of the pandemic in other countries but it's certainly a priority now for the department and for the HSE."

The HSE has said support is being offered to staff at the Marybourough Centre following the tragic deaths.

Dr De Gascun said there was no single issue that applied to every nursing home in the country.

“Some of them have challenges in staffing numbers, some of them are not using permanent staff. There are staff working between different centres and there are challenges in relation to PPE,” he said.

“A huge amount of work has started over the last two or more weeks to identify what individual challenges each nursing home has and how best the HSE can help.”

Wednesday’s agreement allowing HSE nurses to be redeployed to nursing homes will help, he said. However, he warned that it is more difficult to contain the virus in a residential setting than in a hospital.

“Nursing homes are not as straightforward as hospitals because you are trying to get that balance between people living in what is their home while also having significant care needs,” he said.

It is not as easy to divide into different wards or zones and prevent cross-contamination.

Dr De Gascun added that the Covid-19 testing backlog has largely been cleared and he insisted the capacity will be in place to allow for the lifting of restrictions after May 5.

“Obviously, we are aware of the challenges we faced on the testing front which hopefully we have come through now and we are in a position to scale up testing in the coming weeks.

“It is a brand-new system that has been established over a short number of weeks.

“Obviously there have been challenges from the point of view of supply chains and getting to the capacity that we need but a huge amount of work has gone on to try and make sure that we have a variety of different platforms now that we will not be pulling from the same supply chain.

“The capacity for testing will be there in the coming weeks to hopefully allow us to start to lift some restrictions after May 5th.”

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