HSE concern as Mayo emergency department facing 'winter level' surges

Mayo University Hospital is one of the facilities identified by the HSE as experiencing “winter level” surges of patients in emergency departments as Ireland fears a wave of Delta variant cases.

HSE chief operations officer Ann O’Connor said the centres in Castlebar Galway, Tallaght and Mullingar have been under particular strain.

There are 17 patients on trolleys at the Castlebar centre today, further underlining the overcrowding problems there.

Ms O’Connor said some emergency departments are seeing “winter level” attendances.

These hospitals may have to cut back on non-Covid care again if there is a serious rise in patients hit by the Delta variant, according to a report in today's Irish Independent.

The HSE revealed it has plans in place to trigger if the highly infectious Delta variant causes a spike in cases and a rise in hospitalisations.

HSE chief clinical officer Dr. Colm Henry admitted although Covid-19 vaccination has weakened the link between cases of the virus and hospitalisations, it is not “broken”.

He said: “If there are enough cases, there will be enough vaccine breakthroughs in fully vaccinated people. If there are enough cases, those who are unvaccinated will get the greater numbers of those cases.”

There will be some rise in hospitalisations but it will not be on the scale seen in January and it is unclear at this point how serious it will be. Infections are mostly in people under 45.

The inevitable strategy if there is a significant rise in Covid-19 patients is to scale back on waiting list patients.

The HSE plan involves diverting public patients to private hospitals again if needed, the Irish Independent report added.