Mr. Jim Ryan:

At the early stages, a clear plan was put in place at the front gate to ensure that anybody coming in had a temperature check, our public health guidelines were followed rigorously and we ensured that where there were positive cases among staff, they were split into different cohorts in an effective manner.

We also managed to set up what we would call an infirmary within the hospital whereby if we had a positive case, we had a plan in place to deal with that. We probably learned from what was going on in the rest of the country but there was clarity from the word go about what we needed to do in terms of people coming in. Having to restrict visits was very difficult for patients and for everybody concerned but it was right thing to do and we had to do it. We also looked at the way we managed our staff and ensured that we looked at managing contractors, etc., who were coming in. We learned from all of those aspects. It was similar to what was happening in many of our other centres across the country. There were times when I will not say that we were lucky but when we worked hard to be lucky.