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15th May 2020

Mater Hospital responds to allegation that it delayed reporting Covid-19 cases

Carl Kinsella

Covid-19

The Mater Hospital says it has reported all of its confirmed cases of Covid-19 on “a daily basis.”

Dublin’s Mater Hospital has issued a statement confirming that it is the hospital referred to by Chief Medical Officer Dr. Tony Holohan at last night’s NPHET briefing, regarding the alleged delay in reporting confirmed cases of coronavirus.

Yesterday’s numbers of confirmed cases jumped sharply to 426, two-thirds of which were not recent cases but dated as far back as March. Dr. Holohan said that one hospital had been responsible for delaying a bulk of notifications, though he did not name the hospital in question.

Today, the Mater Hospital has addressed this issue in a statement, arguing: “The Mater Hospital has reported all cases of Covid-19 positive results to the relevant authorities on a daily basis.”

“At all times the Mater Hospital provided the information that the HSE required and met all legal requirements to report infectious diseases.” They further claimed that all of the information they provided was “correct and up to date.”

The hospital says it is now working with the HSE to establish “why the provided data may not have been accurately captured.” RTÉ has reported that the hospital is under investigation.

The statement goes on to say that the hospital has carried out “comprehensive contact tracing” on all of its 300 staff who have tested who have tested positive for the virus, and that a further 1,500 staff have self-isolated as a result of the contact tracing.

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