Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 2 June 2020
Special Committee on Covid-19 Response
Use of Private Hospitals (Resumed)
Mr. Liam Woods:
There are two dimensions to the Citywest arrangement. Accommodation is being provided for staff members and patients in the hotel. This accommodation is occupied. I do not have the level of occupancy in my head but it is occupied. Separately, the conference centre has been set up as a facility with more than 300 beds. This was put in place as surge capacity to meet what was then an unquantifiable demand as we moved towards the peak in the middle of April. At the moment, that facility is being closely studied with a view to opening it for clinical purposes associated with post-Covid treatment and rehabilitative care. We are also thinking about using the facility for outpatient treatment because the space required for outpatients in the future will be much greater than what we have, even with the heavy use of virtual clinics. More than 80,000 virtual appointments were completed in the month of April.
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