Letterkenny University Hospital
LETTERKENNY University Hospital plans to re-introduce its full schedule of elective services from Monday, January 4.
It follows confirmation that the number of inpatients with Covid-19 and staff levels impacted by the outbreaks in recent days have fallen.
As of Thursday evening (December 10) there were 24 confirmed Covid-19 positive in-patients in LUH – a significant decrease on last week’s figure.
Despite the significant decrease in the number of Covid-19 inpatients and a stabilisation of the outbreak, the hospital remains extremely busy.
Forty-four beds remain closed as part of the outbreak controls and there are 48 staff currently off work due to Covid infection and 13 staff off because they are symptomatic or a close contact of a confirmed case – a 50% reduction on two weeks ago.
“We are working hard to re-open the closed beds as soon as it is safe to do so,” a spokesperson said.
Earlier this month LUH implemented a hospital-wide Covid-19 screening programme.
“Given the prevalence of Covid-19 in the community in Donegal, we believed it was important to extend the screening beyond those areas being tested as part of the outbreak management process. Given that a proportion of people with Covid-19 do not experience any symptoms, we believed that this universal screening was an important measure to prevent further spread in the hospital and protect our patients and staff.
“Almost 1,100 staff were tested as part of the universal screening which is the largest hospital-wide screening programme to have taken place in Ireland to date. This figure is in addition to over 300 staff being routinely tested who were connected to the outbreak areas. The Covid-19 virus was detected in less than 1% of staff tested as part of the universal screening programme and in over half of these positive cases it was determined that the result was due to a previous infection. 0.4% of the 1000 plus staff tested as part of this screening process had an active infection. The rate of Covid-19 virus detected in staff as part of this screening process was significantly less that the average in County Donegal and the national average. The extremely low detection rate is indicative of the success of the infection control measures implemented by the hospital, including the use of PPE. It also reflects well on the adherence by our staff, both at work and outside work, to hospital and public health guidance.”
CLINICS
· Outpatient Clinics will resume on its normal schedule from next Monday the 14th December. Patients who have clinic appointments should attend as normal unless contacted by the Hospital
· Scheduled surgery will commence on a phased basis from Monday 14th December. Next week only day surgery lists will be scheduled to treat time sensitive cases displaced over the last 4 to 6 weeks.
· Inpatient surgery will be undertaken between Monday the 21st and Wednesday the 23rd of December, again with patients selected on the basis of time sensitive need. Some day-case activity will also take place.
· On the basis that COVID-19 levels remain in control, the hospital plans to re-introduce its full schedule of elective services from Monday the 4th January 2021.
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