No beds in Portlaoise hospital as Covid surges in Laois

Portlaoise hospital staff need lots of equipment to help them treat patients during the Covid-19 emergency

placeholder image — Portlaoise hospital staff need lots of equipment to help them treat patients during the Covid-19 emergency

There were no beds at the end of the weekend in Portlaoise hospital where Frontline Covid-19 staff were fighting for the lives of critically ill patients with the virus while also caring for many other patients in sick with other illnesses.

The latest HSE COVID-19 Daily Operations Update reported on Acute Hospitals up to 8pm on Sunday, November 14.

It said there were five patients with Covid-19 at the Midland Regional Hospital Portlaoise. Of the patients sick with the virus, three were fighting the illness in intensive care.

The crisis facing Portlaoise and many other hospitals is the lack of beds.

The report showed that there were no general or ICU beds available to doctors and nurses in the Laois hospital by the time the report was filed with the HSE's Performance Management and Improvement Unit on Sunday evening.

The report said there were 222 general beds around Ireland, 20 ICU adult beds and one bed for an acutely ill child.

MRPH is the smallest hospital in the Dublin Midland Hospital Group.

There were 11 Covid-19 patients in Tullamore hospital. None were critically ill. However, it had just one general bed and no ICU bed.

Naas General in Kildare had eight Covid-19 patients of whom, three were acutely ill. It had three general beds and on ICU bed available on Sunday night.

Tallaght and St James's Hospital are in the same group. Tallaght had one general bed and one ICU bed. St James's had no ICU beds but 47 available general beds.

Tallaght had 26 confirmed Covid-19 cases with four in ICU. St James's had 40 confirmed and 55 suspected Covid-19 cases on Sunday evening. Of the confirmed cases, 12 were in ICU.

NPHET said on Monday evening, that the Health Protection Surveillance Centre has today been notified of 4,570 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

It added that as of 8am today, 622 COVID-19 patients are hospitalised, of which 117 are in ICU.

The number of people with Covid-19 who are being treated in hospitals has increased by forty from Sunday to 622.

Laois has one of the highest incidences of Covid-19 in Ireland.