Record numbers attending emergency departments - HSE

A record number of people attended hospital emergency departments in the last week, according to the Health Service Executive's Chief Clinical Officer.

Dr Colm Henry said that over 28,000 people attended EDs and while the numbers admitted were lower it is still "troubling". Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said high levels of Covid-19 in hospitals were also having an impact on the "flow of patients" through hospitals.

Dr Henry said there was a rise in the presentation of older people at emergency departments, with an increase of 30% of those aged over 75 compared to last year. "Our staff are telling us that older people are presenting perhaps frailer, sicker, problems secondary to their experience over the past few years, so their admissions tend to be longer and their discharges more complicated." He said they are working hard to put in additional beds and building models of care that do not rely on acute hospitals, but added that is a short game in terms of building extra capacity in the community. Latest coronavirus stories Dr Henry said the potential for Covid-19 to cause widespread harm has greatly diminished, but case numbers in hospitals are having an impact. "It certainly has a significant disruptive effect beyond the numbers we are seeing in hospital, that is because of the impact of outbreaks, the requirement to isolate people, the difficulty to discharge people to residential settings who may be experiencing an outbreak.

He said the latest figures show that over 800 people in hospital have tested positive for Covid-19, but just half are an "incidental finding" where they are not sick with the virus.