The low number of people getting vaccines is impacting on out of hours services according to the Irish College of General Practitioners.
There was a surge in people presenting with flu and Covid related illnesses to Emergency Departments and on-call services over the Christmas period.
Yesterday we told of how visiting restrictions are in place at St Luke’s General Hospital for Carlow and Kilkenny due to the rising instances in the local community. (Hear what Clinical Director Professor Garry Courtney had to say about that here).
Infection Control lead with the ICGP Dr. Scott Walkin says; “If there were fewer people attending to the emergency departments with the flu or flu-like illness, that reduces the workload and it means that the emergency department staff have more capacity to look after people with other injuries or illnesses”.