After a record breaking weekend of admissions to the ED in UHL which serves North Tipp, there was an increase from 92 to 94 without a bed reported today.
Nationally, there are 693 on trolleys across the country’s hospitals, a slight overall decrease from yesterday.
Nenagh based GP Pat Harold says that while the main issue is bed shortages, there should be more focus on primary care to avoid hospital admissions.
“The person who gets sick every winter and ends up in hospital you don’t want them to get like that you want to manage their inhalers and their flu vaccine and if they get an infection treat it thoroughly, it’s when they whole thing of primary care gets overwhelmed is when it ends up back in hospitals. Then there are the people who fall on the ice and break their hip, we can’t do anything for that but they need to go straight in but they don’t need to be sitting for 20 hours so that where the management comes in.. and they need to be triaged.”
Dr. Harold went on to urge people to test for Covid before booking in for an appointment with a GP.
He has reassured people in the lead up to Christmas that while it’s prudent to stock up on their tablets they don’t need to panic about getting their medication over the next few weeks.
However, he is asking patients that they take an antigen test prior to contacting surgeries as services are particularly busy.
“It would be really handy if you did an antigen test before people ring up… if you have a bit of a sniff or a cold it could very well be Covid so if you just do the antigen and unfortunately stay in. There is an awful lot of workers sick… no-one wants you at work if you’re sneezing or coughing.”
