Tag Archives: HSE

Full page ad in this morning’s Irish Times

How much?

€34,000.

Thud.

*full body spasm*

Meanwhile…

The first cases of a new Covid-19 variant of concern have been detected in the Republic.

Two cases of BA.4, a sublineage of the currently dominant Omicron Covid-19 variant, were detected earlier this month, according to chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan.

…Dr Holohan says the two strains have a growth advantage most likely because they can evade immunity provided by prior infection and vaccination, particularly as this wanes over time.

Covid: New variant of concern detected in Republic  (Paul Cullen, Irish Times)

Dr Derval Igoe, Interim Director of the Health Protection Surveillance Centre

This morning.

Via RTÉ News:

The Chair of the HSE’s Monkeypox Incident Management Team has said it is possible that cases of monkeypox will be seen in Ireland and an incident management team has been established to ensure that the country is fully prepared for that eventuality.

Dr Derval Igoe, Interim Director of the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, said cases that are currently been seen in Europe are arising without a link to Africa, where cases ordinarily occur.

Dr Igoe said many expert groups were working on the best ways to monitor the disease and spread awareness of it.

“We do have a lot of a lot of different professional groups working on this,” she said.

“We have our sexual health and infectious disease experts in the hospitals, also our national isolation unit, the virus reference lab, national immunisation office and the Department of Health.

“We are also working with Gay Heath Network to make sure the messages are delivered in a suitable way to the populations we know are seeing cases of this virus.”

Team set up to prepare Ireland for monkeypox – HSE (RTE)

RollingNews

Meanwhile…

Hmm.

Meanwhile…

Um.

Meanwhile….

Via The National Pulse:

The Wuhan Institute of Virology assembled a monkeypox virus genome, allowing the virus to be identified through PCR tests, using a method researchers flagged for potentially creating a “contagious pathogen”.

The study was first published in February 2022, just months before the latest international outbreak of monkeypox cases which appear to have now reached the United States.

The paper, which was authored by nine Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers and published in the lab’s quarterly scientific journal Virologica Sinica, also follows the wide-scale use of Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests to identify COVID-19-positive individuals.

The Infamous Wuhan Lab Recently Assembled Monkeypox Strains Using Methods Flagged For Creating ‘Contagious Pathogens’ (National Pulse)

Meanwhile…

This afternoon.

Anyone?

Earlier…

This morning.

Via RTÉ News:

The Health Service Executive has confirmed that a child who was being treated for an acute form of hepatitis, has died.

A second child who was also being treated for the same illness has received a liver transplant.

Both cases are being linked to an unexplained type of hepatitis that is being reported in children worldwide.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has said the total number of cases reported worldwide is approximately 450.

Meanwhile…

The HSE said that over the last two months approximately, six probable cases of children with hepatitis of unknown cause have been detected in Ireland.

The six children were aged between one and 12 years of age. All were hospitalised.

In addition a small number of other cases are being assessed to see if they are linked to this acute hepatitis of unknown origin or if they have another cause for their illness.

The HSE said the cause of acute hepatitis in these children has not yet been found and all possibilities are being investigated at present.

Child dies from acute form of hepatitis (RTE)

Meanwhile…

Meanwhile…

…via Daily Exposé:

The question on everyone’s lips though is ‘what on earth is causing this deadly outbreak of liver inflammation among children?’

Authorities such as the UK Health Security Agency have been quick to disregard the Covid-19 injections. At first, they claimed none of the children had been vaccinated, before quickly revising that claim to “not all of the children have been vaccinated”.

But there exists a huge amount of evidence that suggests the Covid-19 injections should not be so quickly disregarded as the root cause of this mysterious and deadly hepatitis affecting children.

Evidence that Public Health authorities would be extremely wise to ponder instead of wasting their time trying to link this hepatitis outbreak to Covid-19 even though less than 20% of the affected children have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.

What could be causing the mysterious rise in deadly Hepatitis cases among Children? (Daily Exposé)

Meanwhile…

The Sisters of Charity are the main shareholders of the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group which the Department of Health said will be the “sole owner of the new hospital” which is planned to be built at the St Vincent’s Hospital site at Elm Park, Dublin 4

This afternoon.

Via Simon McGarr in The Gist: (full article at link below):

The Permitted Use the HSE can put the new hospital to is defined in the Lease as

“In relation to the National Maternity Hospital Area as a public hospital primarily for the provision of all clinically appropriate and legally permissible healthcare services, including research, by a maternity, gynaecology, obstetrics and neonatal hospital, and a range of related health services in the community and any other public healthcare service or services”

That creates a two step test for any use of the hospital.

1) clinically appropriate

2) legally permissible.

On Prime Time, Holles Street’s legal advisor said that she was originally very pleased at the insertion of the phrase “clinically permissible” into the agreement document and then that;

We did not foresee that this would be taken and flipped.”

Ambiguity results in unexpected, unwanted or sometimes perverse-seeming interpretations being placed on the disputed phrases.

The Minister has said this phrase was introduced at HSE request. It can therefore be removed without damaging the deal otherwise.

It should.

Earlier: lease Of Life

The Gist: The Maternity Hospital, in brief (Simon McGarr, The Gist)

Dr Cathy Gardner with her father Michael Gibson, who died aged 88 in a care home in Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom in April

This morning.

Via BBC:

UK Government policies on discharging patients from hospital to care homes at the start of the Covid pandemic have been ruled unlawful by the High Court.

The ruling comes after two women took the government to court, saying Covid patients were discharged from hospitals back to care homes without testing.

Dr Cathy Gardner and Fay Harris, whose fathers died, said it caused a “shocking death toll” of residents.

The women claimed key policies of discharging patients from hospitals into care homes were implemented with no testing and no suitable isolation arrangements in the homes.

The High Court said the policies failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from non-symptomatic transmission of the virus.

…In their ruling, Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Garnham concluded that, despite there being “growing awareness” of the risk of asymptomatic transmission throughout March 2020, there was no evidence that then Health Secretary Matt Hancock addressed the issue of the risk to care home residents of such transmission.

Covid: Discharging hospital patients to care homes ‘unlawful’ (BBC)

Meanwhile…

Kevin Higgins writes:

This is what happened here with at least a thousand needless deaths. This has huge implications for Dept of Health and HSE…

Previously: Left to Die: Nursing Home Timeline

HSE CEO Paul Reid

This morning.

Let it go, Paul.

Meanwhile…

This morning.

…via RTÉ News:

The Taoiseach has said he did not believe that making it mandatory to wear a mask indoors would change the current Covid-19 situation.

Organisations representing doctors and nurses have called on the Government to reintroduce some measures to tackle the spread of Covid-19.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the Irish Association for Emergency Medicine have called on ministers to revisit measures such as wearing masks indoors and in congregated settings and working from home.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, Micheál Martin said the Government is guided by public health advice in relation to Covid-19 and he has been in touch with the Chief Medical Officer

…Mr Martin said the country is in a new phase of Covid-19 and the guidance remains to wear a mask.

However he added that the return of restrictions is not justified.

Return of Covid restrictions not justified, Taoiseach says (RTE)

RollingNews

Stop that.

This afternoon.

Heuston South Quarter (HSQ), Dublin,

Members of staff at HSE’s Contact Management Programme celebrates its diverse and multicultural team through Holi, the Hindu festival of colours, also known as the ‘Festival of Love’. Holi is observed on sundown of Thursday, March 17 ending at sundown on Friday, March 18 with much smearing of colours, drenching of water and general hilarity. Your move, Catholics.

Leah Farrell/Photocall Ireland

This afternoon.

Via Fergal Bowers at RTÉ News:

The highest level of attendances at emergency departments on record has been seen in the past week, with 28,000 patients attending, according to the Health Service Executive.

HSE Chief Operations Officer Anne O’Connor said that many of those attending were older, sicker, more frail and stay in hospital longer.

Ms O’Connor said that the HSE hopes the peak is a temporary trend and a delayed winter surge.

The average daily trolley count for the past week is 333.

What could possibly be the emergency?

Anyone?

Record level of emergency department attendance seen in last week – HSE (RTE)

RollingNews

This afternoon.

Dr Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin.

HSE CEO Paul Reid addresses the HSE weekly covid briefing.

Where’s your tie?

Meanwhile…

Thanks, Paul.

Meanwhile…

Pfizer Inc’s antiviral Covid-19 pill

This afternoon.

Via RTÉ News:

The European Union’s drug regulator has conditionally approved the use of Pfizer Inc’s antiviral Covid-19 pill for treating adults at risk of severe illness.

The endorsement by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) allows EU member states to deploy the drug after the regulator gave guidance for its emergency use late last year.

Italy, Germany and Belgium are among a handful of EU countries that have bought the drugs.

EU drug regulator green lights Pfizer’s Covid-19 pill (RTE)

RollingNews

From top: The Guardian, July 2020; Stephen Donnelly (right), Minister for Health, and Paul Reid, Chief Executive Officer, HSE, launching the HSE Covid Tracker App on July 7, 2020

This morning.

Via Irish Times letters

The article “Covid tracker app used by few to identify close contactsmay lead some to believe that individuals are to blame for the low usage of the HSE Covid app for contact tracing (“Only 20,946 had used the Government app for the purpose for which it was intended by uploading close contacts”).

The likely reason that people aren’t using the HSE’s contract tracing app for contact tracing is, ironically, because the HSE won’t let them. A six-digit code from the HSE is required in order to automatically notify any close contacts.

I recently got Covid and this code wasn’t provided to me by the HSE. I couldn’t use the app to notify close contacts, even though I wanted to.

The HSE should be giving these codes to every infected person. If it isn’t, why not? How often are they being given out? How many people that have been given a code successfully uploaded their contact tracing data?

The Covid tracker app isn’t being used to anywhere near its full potential.

Only the HSE can tell us why.

Nick Bell, Dublin 8.

Anyone?

Irish Times Letters

RollingNews