Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Health system ‘hurt’ after two years of coronavirus

HSE chief Paul Reid said the service remains under pressure.

Dominic McGrath
Thursday 27 January 2022 11:11 EST
HSE chief Paul Reid said the health service remains under pressure (PA)
HSE chief Paul Reid said the health service remains under pressure (PA) (PA Archive)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The Covid-19 pandemic has “hurt” the Irish health system, the HSE chief executive said as he stressed the need to learn the lessons of the last two years.

In the first HSE briefing since the Government announced a major easing of Covid-19 restrictions last Friday, Paul Reid said the health system has learned a lot since 2020.

While the HSE chief said the passing of the worst of the Omicron wave has brought “relief” to health workers, the health system is still under pressure.

There are 711 patients with Covid-19 in Irish hospitals, with 74 in intensive care.

This week, 4,800 staff remain absent due to Covid-19.

Mr Reid said: “The health service is hurt over that two-year period. Nobody could go through all of those waves and the impact of a cyber attack and not acknowledge it has hurt the health system.

“There will be a longer tail for us out of this. So as we are experiencing a great lift in society, our hospital system in particular still has to deal with a long tail out of this process and the effects that it has.”

However, Mr Reid also pointed to more positive statistics.

He said 53% of hospitalised patients were in for an initial diagnosis of Covid, with the rest diagnosed initially for a different illness before being confirmed to have the virus.

Mr Reid also said lessons learned during the pandemic will form the basis for future reform of Ireland’s fragile health service.

“I think building the infrastructure on the testing and tracing and the vaccination programmes overall demonstrated that capacity and agility of the health system.

Mr Reid said Ireland needs to “utilise” a single health system.

“Yes, we do have a private and a public health system in Ireland,” he said.

“The private capacity did play a very key role with us throughout the pandemic. I do see them as part of the solution as we go to address some of the waiting lists.”

Mr Reid, praising staff, warned Covid has not gone away.

“I don’t think you’d hear anybody in the health system overall say it’s over,” he said.

While he stressed that people need to enjoy more normal lives, he cautioned the virus is “still with us”.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in