Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have spoken to HSE again recently. There is a significant crisis across the health service because of the impact of this variant. It is creating huge pressures on hospitals because they have to isolate more and more patients, 50% of whom do not come in because of Covid but transpire to have Covid when they are in hospital. That necessitates isolation and other procedures which makes it doubly difficult on the hospitals and emergency services. Then there is the problem of people leaving hospital having been officially discharged. They cannot move into respite or nursing home care because of those nursing homes being the centres of outbreaks.

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