The number of new cases of Covid-19 has started to fall in Mayo in the past week.
The latest information from the National Public Health Emergency Team at the time of going to press, showed that on Tuesday, January 26, there were 34 new cases confirmed in the county of Mayo, down from 87 on the Tuesday before.
There has also been a massive drop in the number of new cases confirmed over 14-day periods in the county, with 988 new cases confirmed in Mayo from January 13 to 26, compared to the two-week period to January 19, when there were 2,023 confirmed new cases in the county.
There has also been a drop in the past week in the number of people receiving treatment for Covid-19 in Mayo University Hospital, according to the latest data from the HSE Daily Operations update at the time of going to print, which showed that at midnight, on Wednesday, January 27, there were 71 people being treated for the virus in the hospital - down from 93 on the Wednesday before.
The Belmullet Electoral Area continues to be the hotspot for infections in the county, according to the latest LEA breakdown of results from the health services. Their 14-day LEA data goes from January 5 to 18 and showed that in Belmullet, there were 700 new cases in that time period, with 366 in Claremorris, 264 in Ballina, 198 in Westport, 185 in Castlebar and 185 in the Swinford local electoral area.
However, the escalating number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care units (ICUs ), combined with high levels of staff absenteeism due to the virus, is putting severe pressure on local hospitals, according to Tony Canavan, the chief executive of the Saolta University Health Care Group.
Speaking to the Advertiser newspaper group on Wednesday this week week, he said there are three Covid patients in Mayo University Hospital's eight-bed ICU now, compared to one on Tuesday last. There are two vacant ICU beds currently at each of the western hospitals, UHG, Portiuncula, and Mayo University Hospital.
Other initiatives introduced to meet the demand for ICU services include the redeployment of some nursing staff to the ICU at UHG and the transfer of patients from various hospitals within the Saolta group, to avail of vacant critical care beds in facilities on other sites in the region.
Mr Canavan outlined that patients have been transferred in the last week from Mayo and Letterkenny to UHG, from Mayo to Portiuncula University Hospital in Ballinasloe, and from Portiuncula Hospital to Roscommon hospital.
"This is the best way to manage ICU beds. If one hospital is under pressure, other hospitals can help. There is co-operation across the region and this has worked very well. It is not just people's own individual hospitals in their areas which are looking after them, all resources are pooled."
Mr Canavan added that the cancellation of non-emergency scheduled surgeries enabled the hospital group to redeploy nurses to intensive care units. This alleviated the pressure on these facilities which treat the critically ill, as well as allowing UHG to open additional ICU beds as part of its surge initiative. These extra beds could not have been opened unless staff became available and with the high level of Covid-related absenteeism, staff shortfalls is a major issue in hospitals right now.
The CEO explained that "high level supports", such as oxygen therapy, are being provided to patients in general hospital beds across the Saolta group, which runs seven hospitals on five sites in Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo and Donegal. "This allows us to hold ICU beds for the sickest people”, he said.
But while ICUs continue to treat increasing numbers of Covid-positive patients, the numbers in Covid wards have begun to decrease. This is in line with the third wave of the virus having peaked early last week, according to the Saolta chief.
He said the hospitals are entering a "different phase" now in terms of managing the virus. A few weeks ago, the number of people contacting their GPs with Covid-19 concerns rose, as did the numbers attending testing centres and being hospitalised because of the virus. These numbers have levelled off.
"The situation has improved a little in the hospitals," said the CEO. "We hit the peak early last week and the numbers [of people being hospitalised] have started to level off. It is not a dramatic reduction, but the main thing is that they have stopped rising and that is very important. Each day over the past seven days, the numbers have come down a little bit.”
One of the biggest sources of pressure on each of the Saolta hospitals is the level of Covid-related absenteeism, he said. This figure has "stabilised" and "slightly improved" in the last week but it is still concerning.
There were more than 900 staff across the Saolta group (which employs 10,000 people ) on sick leave last week due to having contracted the disease or being a close contact of a case. That number dropped to 800 this week.
Mayo University Hospital is without 147 staff currently, 81 of these are nurses and 15 are doctors. He said it is important to remember that there are additional staff absent too due to non-Covid illness or maternity leave. There are Covid-19 outbreaks in six of Saolta's seven hospitals. Roscommon is the only hospital unaffected.
Mr Canavan said while the decrease in Covid-19 numbers in the community is a positive sign, he does not expect to see a "significant improvement" until mid February. By the end of next month, the situation should have improved "quite considerably". He believes it will take the hospitals a long time to recover from the pandemic.
"The number of Covid-19 patients is coming down a little bit but it will take longer for the ICUs to recover, in addition to getting all the outbreaks closed out and to get people back to work. There are also all the patients who have had procedures cancelled, that's a huge issue. It's a worry, we don't have the capacity to do anything about it now, but hopefully over the coming months", he said.
