Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Reid and his colleagues for coming today. I know they put considerable work into preparing to appear before the committee and it is really appreciated.

As we are beginning to learn how to live with Covid and doing so safely as we reopen our economy, we must try to establish confidence in the economy and also in healthcare settings and so on. Bearing that in mind, can Mr. Reid be clear about how many health-acquired infections there have been, that is, people who were in acute hospitals and acquired Covid? Can Mr. Reid break those figures down into those who recovered or died as a consequence? There is one very sad case in my own area. It is a matter of confidence over time. I imagine, subject to Mr. Reid correcting me, that the incidence rate will decrease over time as the reaction, use of PPE and management practice, improves. It will be important for the public to have clarity on if we are asking them to return to hospital settings for treatment of non-Covid illnesses.

On reopening healthcare settings more generally, I refer to paediatric care and clinics. On reopening hospitals, care applies to everyone but it is particularly difficult with children, in relation to social and physical distancing but also often diagnostics. I am particularly concerned about the opening of standard clinics, including diabetes clinics. Picture the management of the standard outpatient clinic in Crumlin hospital on a Tuesday or Thursday afternoon. How will that be managed? I cannot see a way where it returns to its previous form at any time in the future. Is this an opportunity to break that into something that is easier for parents generally to manage, where they might turn up at a specified time with a likelihood of having the appointment within that time. That is an important opportunity that might come from this.

On nursing home testing, Dr. Holohan referred to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC, technical report which was published today. I do not wish to catch Mr. Reid on the hoof on this but it focuses on the rapidity of testing. Will Mr. Reid confirm two things? There was an ongoing concern on nursing homes in my area about their ability to test patients and staff rather than waiting for a scheduled test, either waiting for GP referral or for a public health authority to come and test or to schedule a test. Nursing homes are capable of doing it and some are beginning to do it but as recently as last week, nursing homes in my area have raised this with me. Linked to that is where those tests go. There was concern that the batch of testing went to more than one laboratory resulting in staggered results back to the nursing home. That creates operational difficulties when one is trying to operate isolation in a confined congregated setting such as a nursing home. Will Mr. Reid confirm that he expects this will happen or that it is already happening, where nursing homes are entitled to do that testing themselves where there is a suspected patient and that any batches will be tested in the same laboratory to accelerate the process?

The ECDC report goes through European countries, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK. All but two have data from as recently as 11 May. Anyone reading it will notice that our data relating to long-term care facilities is from 13 April. I want to flag that with Mr. Reid. There may be a reason for this and I would be delighted if he could provide that to me. If that is not possible now, he might do so later.

Returning to normalisation, the decision to take over private hospitals had to be made at the time it was made, in the expectation of a surge and the pressure on intensive care units. It is incredibly welcome that it has not been needed as expected. It would have been unforgivable not to make those decisions at that time. However, now that we have overcome that first really dangerous period and it looks as though we will experience a series of waves, as described earlier, does Mr. Reid have in mind an appropriate proportion of space that must be retained over time in private hospitals in order to account for those waves? Will he give the committee some information on that? That is enough.