Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Ministers of State.

In the time I have, I want to deal with Covid in the context of both Limerick, with University Hospital Limerick, UHL, and more widely.

At present, UHL has 89 patients on trolleys but there are 78 patients in the hospital with Covid. There is a direct correlation. We have a new 60-bed ward. That 60-bed ward was supposed to alleviate the emergency department, ED. That is being used as an isolation ward for Covid. There are 78 patients in UHL with Covid. There are five in ICU. It is welcome that the numbers are reducing but the task for Government at present is how to get the number of people with Covid in hospital down. If it can deal with that, the number of people in hospital with Covid will reduce and beds will be freed up for other elective work that is not happening and that had to be put back previously. That is primary task. Let us put a plan in action to get the number of patients in hospitals with Covid down. There are 89 in the ED in UHL and 78 in the hospital with Covid. That speaks for itself.

Once we deal with that task, we have to evolve the way we deal with Covid. We have to get to live with Covid fully. NPHET has done great work but the next strategies, and the medium-term strategy, are being developed. The Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, is looking at it with the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly. I refer to this expert advisory group with Professor Brady. We now have to get to a point where we need to bring in the business, education and voluntary sectors as well as all the other sectors that are directly impacted by Covid. NPHET becomes part of that equation. Effectively, they provide public health advice. In the long term, we cannot have further major lockdowns because businesses and schools cannot withstand them. I ask that the new model that is considered be a more inclusive model where NPHET is part of it but there are business groups and other groups involved making decisions in real time to ensure that we bring in measures to enable us to live with Covid while at the same allowing business can function.

The big task for Government is to reduce the number of people with Covid in hospital. Omicron has not generated as many ICU cases but some people are ending up in hospital. If we get that number down, then at least we can then deal with large ED numbers in hospitals such as UHL with 89 patients on trolleys, and with 78 in hospital with Covid. The new 96-bed block needs to be built as quickly as possible.

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