“We’ve never seen 66% of patients in ICU being treated for the same illness.”
Chief Executive of the HSE Paul Reid has said it is getting harder to sustain safe levels of care for people affected by Covid-19 in Ireland.
In a post on Twitter on Friday morning, Reid said that two thirds of patients (211) in intensive care units (ICU) in Ireland are being treated for Covid-19.
A further 300 patients in Ireland, Reid said, are receiving respiratory support outside of ICU.
Reid said that while health services across the country are battling hard to provide safe levels of care, he said that it is “getting harder” to do so and that “nothing is more serious”.
We’ve never seen 66% of patients in ICU (211) being treated for the same illness. We’re battling hard to sustain safe levels of care but its getting harder.300 patients are also receiving respiratory support outside of ICU. Nothing is more serious. #StaySafe @HSELive #COVID19
— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) January 22, 2021
As of 7.30pm on Thursday night, there were 1,949 people being treated for Covid-19 in Irish hospitals, following the admission of 114 Covid-19 patients and 118 discharges in the previous 24 hours.
The figure of 211 cases in ICU provided by Reid on Friday morning is slightly lower than the 214 confirmed cases in ICU as of 7.30pm on Thursday night, following 16 Covid-19 related admissions to ICU and 11 discharges in the previous 24 hours.
2,608 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in Ireland on Thursday, as well as 51 further deaths, 49 of which occurred in January.
As of Wednesday (20 January), 121,900 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine (first dose) had been administered in Ireland, while some of the first recipients of the first dose of the vaccine in Ireland received their second dose this week.
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