Surge of flu and Covid-19 cases meeting ‘more pessimistic’ projections

The surge of flu and Covid-19 patients is hitting hospitals earlier than expected, with cases of winter viruses following “more pessimistic” forecasts, the Health Service Executive (HSE) has said.

The numbers in hospital with the flu doubled last week, with confirmed cases in the community shooting past the peak of the winter flu season in 2019, which previously was the worst in recent years.

The health service had forecast that more than 900 people would be in hospitals with the flu by early January, as well as up to 1,200 patients with Covid-19.

The HSE said on Friday the wave of winter viruses was following the “more pessimistic” of its forecasts. The surge of cases also looked to be coming two weeks earlier than expected, it said.

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The number of flu patients in hospitals increased from 299 to 637 last week, according to a recent report by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC). There were also more than 700 patients in hospitals with Covid-19 on Thursday.

There were 27 flu outbreaks in hospitals recorded last week, as well as 47 Covid-19 outbreaks, according to the report.

Dr Colm Henry, the HSE’s chief clinical officer, said the “steep incline” in flu cases was now higher than levels seen in 2019. There was “no sign yet” that the wave of current flu cases had peaked, he said.

“We expect this incline to remain sharply upwards for a number of weeks to come,” he said.

The HSE’s crisis team of senior management has routinely met over the last week to discuss the situation in hospitals.

Contracts with private hospitals have allowed the HSE to access an extra 145 beds for urgent or emergency admissions.

While some elective surgeries had been cancelled, the HSE said “every effort” was being made to see urgent or time-sensitive procedures go ahead.

There is an expectation that more elective surgeries may be curtailed or moved to hospitals without emergency departments to take some pressure off busier hospitals.

There were 570 patients waiting for beds in hospitals on Friday, down from 631 the day before, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s (INMO) daily trolley watch count.

Internal HSE figures show 427 patients were waiting in emergency departments, down slightly from 447 the previous day.

The numbers waiting in emergency departments, by the HSE’s count, is more than double what it was this day last year, when 205 patients were waiting for beds. However, the numbers attending emergency departments were far lower than usual during much of the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic.

INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said the current state of the health service was “extremely concerning”, with nurses having spent this year “working in a constant state of crisis”.

The union leader said staff were “firefighting intolerable overcrowding coupled with highly transmissible viruses and infections”.

In the busiest hospitals, she said, frontline staff had been warning that current conditions were compromising patient safety.

Ms Ní Sheaghdha said numbers waiting on trolleys often had the potential to nearly double during the first week of January.

“The State cannot walk into the next week unprepared for what could be a severe overcrowding crisis,” she said. “We cannot allow a drift into this dangerous situation emerging across the country,” she said.

Tadhg Daly, chief executive of Nursing Homes Ireland, which represents private and voluntary nursing homes, said the sector was also dealing with a rise in cases and outbreaks. “There is a bit of concern given the trajectory of Covid and flu, but more so flu,” he said.

There was “no doubt” there had been an increase in outbreaks of Covid-19 and flu, but he said at present nursing homes were “coping”.