Nobody’s waiting for a bed at St Luke’s Hospital today.
That’s despite 232 people on trolleys across the country according to figures from the Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation.
It comes as the HSE is promising almost 900 beds as part of its nationwide €600,000,000 Winter Plan which covers the period from now until April 2021.
The Health Service is focusing on building capacity in the system, promising 892 acute beds.
830 of these will be general beds, 409 of which are already in place.
The remaining 62 will be critical care beds, 45 of which are now in place.
There will be a further 484 sub-acute beds, the majority of which are also already in place.
There’s a big emphasis on increasing the uptake of the flu vaccine.
Targets of 75 per cent have been set for at-risk groups and health care workers.
Testing and contact tracing capacity will remain at 100,000 per week.
The HSE has promised a better, safer winter that will address the backlog of non-covid care.
Nursing representatives are looking for the government to ensure there is adequate staffing for any additional hospital beds.
INMO General Secretary, Phil Ni Sheaghdagh, says plans need to be made for staff becoming ill commenting “Our own staff are getting sick from Covid-19, now we’ve had just over 9,054 healthcare workers infected with Covid-19 and of those 31% are nurses and many of those from our surveys are still not recovered”.
