The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organization’s (INMO) general secretary, Phil N. Sheaghdha, has issued a warning that Covid is still a problem in the healthcare system, with 19 patients in ICUs across the country because to the virus.
“It hasn’t gone away,” she told RTÉ radio’s Today show. “We’re really concerned about the announcement that the mask mandate is going to be lifted next week.”
“If you had a perfect hospital system that had single rooms and everybody was being cared for in isolation, that’s fine to make these types of infection prevention and control announcements.
“But when you have an overcrowded environment with overcrowded wards, overcrowded EDs, this is absolutely the wrong move right now.”
On April 19th, patients, workers, and visitors will no longer be required to wear masks at all times, according to Ms. N Sheaghdha. However, the HSE said in its statement that patients on multi-bed wards should be given masks if others are sick.
“So in other words they’re saying it’s up to the patient.
“No patient in hospital is going to know whether somebody else is symptomatic. That is the responsibility of the health care provider in our view. And we don’t want nurses put in a position where they’re saying to one patient, well, look, that patient over there has a cough, so you should be really wearing a mask. It’s absolutely nonsensical.
“We believe that we’ve always been critical of the information that the HSE have provided in respect of infection control and cross-infection in hospitals.
“Unfortunately, we know that many people are getting Covid and getting other transmissible conditions in the hospital by virtue of just simply being in hospital because of the environment, because of the air, because of the overcrowding.”