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A Dublin hotel and conference center has become the first of a series of new coronavirus centers for isolation and stepdown care in Ireland.<\/p>\nA Dublin hotel and conference center has become the first of a series of new coronavirus centers for isolation and stepdown care in Ireland.<\/p>\n
The hotel part of the Citywest complex will provide beds for 750 people who are unable to self-isolate due to the nature of their own living arrangements. It will open at the end of the week.<\/p>\n
The Citywest conference center is being turned into a stepdown care facility for Covid-19 patients who are recovering from the infection.<\/p>\n
The 450 beds earmarked for the facility will only be used once capacity in hospital settings has been exceeded.<\/p>\n
It will start operating, if needed, in two or three weeks\u2019 time.<\/p>\n
We are certainly working towards the peak in mid-April – so over the next two to three weeks<\/p>\n
Similar isolation\/stepdown facilities will be opened in other urban centers across the country, including Cork, Limerick and Galway.<\/p>\n
Senior HSE officials announced the moves at the Citywest center on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
HSE chief executive Paul Reid said it was important to plan for the worst-case scenario. \u201cWe have to be prepared,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The new centers are part of a ramping-up of preparations across the healthcare sector for the anticipated surge in coronavirus cases.<\/p>\n
By utilizing private hospital facilities and securing adding equipment, the HSE is set to double the number of critical care beds from 250 to 500.<\/p>\n
As of Sunday morning, 88 patients with Covid-19 were in an ICU bed in the country.<\/p>\n
However, there are fears that number is likely to soar in the coming days and weeks.<\/p>\n
Mr Reid said about 1,700 additional beds with ventilation support would be available, with plans to increase that number by 100 each week for the next ten weeks.<\/p>\n
HSE chief operations officer Anne O\u2019Connor said it was impossible to be certain when the peak might come, but THAT HSE planning models suggested it could be mid-April.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that any of us can really say exactly when the peak is going to be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are certainly working towards the peak in mid-April \u2013 so over the next two to three weeks. And that is what we are planning for, but clearly we don\u2019t know. But we do have to work on some basis when it comes to planning, so we are planning for a peak kind of between the 10th and the 14th of April, around that time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Reid said the hospital system would come under significant pressure as he acknowledged that the HSE was nervous about what lay ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur hospital system in particular will be under significant pressure in the coming weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Reid urged the public to support healthcare workers in any way they could.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the public is nervous, our healthcare workers are very nervous too and we are nervous for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it is going to be a difficult period. So this is a special call-out from me as the CEO of the HSE to really support our health care workers in the coming weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n