Two hospitals introduce visiting restrictions as Covid-19 infections increase markedly

Two hospitals have introduced visiting restrictions with immediate effect due to Covid-19 outbreaks.

University Hospital Galway has urged the public not to visit the hospital if they are feeling unwell, while St Luke’s General Hospital in Kilkenny said it is advising patients to only attend its emergency department “if absolutely necessary” and not to bring children unless they are ill.

The HSE has said Ireland is seeing an increase in Covid-19 infections, with 10 patients in intensive care (ICU) with the disease on Thursday, compared with three on July 1st.

“Indicators had been trending downwards during May and June 2023, and began to increase again from the end of June,” a spokeswoman for the HSE said.

“A similar trend is occurring in the UK. No new variant of Sars-CoV-2 has been identified to account for this increase. We have seen waves of increased Covid-19 activity occur, even in the absence of new virus variants, every few months since the start of 2022.”

The HSE said there were probably several factors driving these waves, such as increased indoor mixing and international travel as well as waning immunity.

“To date, waves during the summer period have generally been of lower magnitude than those in the winter period.”

There were 419 cases of Covid-19 reported over the past week, a 51.8 per cent increase compared with the previous week, when 276 cases were notified, the latest figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) show.

UHG said there are 39 patients with Covid-19 in the hospital while five wards are impacted by outbreaks and its emergency department is “experiencing very high attendances”. Visiting restrictions are in place in areas of the hospital impacted by the outbreak.

St Luke’s General Hospital said due to increased infection control measures required at this time for Covid-19, it will temporarily suspend hospital visiting immediately, except for those visiting the maternity unit and exceptional circumstances as determined by each ward manager.

Chris Kane, UHG hospital manager, said: “We are preparing for a busy weekend across health services this weekend.

“In UHG, Covid-19 outbreaks and high ED attendances are putting additional pressure on our bed capacity, for that reason we are asking our local community to be mindful of the safety of our patients and staff, please do not visit the hospital if you are feeling unwell.”

Monaghan GP Illona Duffy said she and other general practitioners were “absolutely” seeing higher numbers of Covid-19 cases and people experiencing symptoms.

“The difficulty is obviously we know all of this is underreported because there is no formal testing any more. The main testing that would be occurring would be in the hospital setting and it is being reported there definitely is a rise in numbers there,” she said.

“In GP settings, what many of us are doing is if we have people that we suspect have definite symptoms, we’re asking them to self-test before coming into us and that’s creating difficulties, because people often don’t have tests at home any more.

“We’re having to go back to taking a bit more caution with patients. Whereas many of us had mostly stopped the need for masks, we’re probably going to be advising people who have respiratory problems to start wearing them again when they’re coming into the surgeries.”

Ms Duffy added the rise in cases was affecting staff in some practices and she knew of one GP who had three members of their team out as they had all tested positive for Covid-19.

“That obviously has a huge impact on the delivery of services,” she said.

Ray Walley, who is a GP in north Dublin, said there had “definitely been an uptick” in cases this week, with some being sent to hospital for care.

Gary Stack, a SouthDoc GP, which covers out of hours services in Cork and Kerry, said it was seeing generally less than 10 cases of Covid-19 per week.

The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) said it was aware that Covid-19 cases had started to increase but “have not, as of yet, been notified of any significant increase in pharmacy visits from patients experiencing symptoms of Covid-19″.

“If someone has not yet received their vaccine or if they are eligible for a booster vaccine, selected pharmacies nationwide continue to offer a Covid-19 vaccination service,” a spokesman for the IPU said.