Over 1,700 people attended Portlaoise Emergency Department in last two weeks

Over 1,700 people have attended the Midlands Regional Hospital Portloiase Emergency Department over the last two weeks as the hospital continues to deal with a high number of patients with respiratory viral illnesses, such as Influenza, RSV and COVID-19. This is having a big impact on bed capacity and visitor restrictions have been implemented in an effort to stop the spread of illnesses. 

In a statement on Wednesday morning, January 8 a hospital spokesperson said: "There are 17 patients being managed with a respiratory illness requiring isolation at MRHP which impacts on available bed capacity. "In the past two weeks, MRHP have seen 1,732 ED attendances with 428 ED admissions, and a total of 644 patients admitted to the hospital in that period. All additional capacity on site has been activated, as well as the use of off-site capacity in nursing homes and other care facilities.

"In order to reduce the spread of these illnesses in the healthcare setting MRHP has implemented visiting restrictions. These measures will be lifted as soon as possible when clinical circumstances allow. Certain exceptions will be made by contacting ward staff in advance. For up-to-date guidelines on visiting patients, please visit: https://www2.hse.ie/services/disruptions/."

The HSE Lead for the Midlands Integrated Health Area, Carole Broadbank commented “Hospitals are implementing visiting restrictions. With respect to MRHP specifically, we are permitting only one visitor at a time per patient during normal visiting times, with some exceptions made on compassionate grounds. We are asking people to only visit patients at the hospital or other health care residential setting if you are symptom free from flu or other respiratory illness, and would ask all visitors to wear masks and to use the hand sanitisation facilities on entry to the hospital/care setting.

"Given the current weather conditions, we know that this can contribute to activity across our services where we see more trips, slips and falls and while injury units are very much the appropriate setting for these types of injury we would ask people to be cautious and not to take unnecessary risks that can led to injury. Check in on neighbours and make sure they are supported in the cold spell. 
 
"While hospitals are busy, staff are caring for many seriously ill patients. We would ask patients with non-emergency conditions to seek assistance from other parts of the health service”.

She said, “there are a range of care pathways available to patients who do not need emergency care including visiting your pharmacy for advice on common minor illnesses.  Find out more at www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/2/pharmacy/  It also advises that if you urgently need to see a GP outside of normal hours, contact the local GP Out of Hours service – https://www2.hse.ie/services/find-urgent-emergency-care/"