Hospitals brace as flu and RSV cases surge

The upward trend in flu cases will continue, peaking Christmas week and around the new year, it said.

“We expect the week of Christmas and the new year to see flu cases to be at their highest so far this season, and modelling shows hospitalisations from flu alone to be in the region of 600 to 900,” HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster said.

“When all other factors are taken into consideration, people can expect to see all access points to healthcare under pressure over the next few weeks.” 

Emergency departments (EDs), which are already operating under pressure and over capacity, are bracing for the surge, with Cork University Hospital’s (CUH) ED, one of the country’s busiest, operating at ‘black escalation level’, the highest, for the last week.

Professor Conor Deasy, a consultant in emergency medicine at CUH and president of the Irish Association of Emergency Medicine, said the next government needs to urgently address the chronic bed shortage across the hospital system.

“We have been highlighting deficits in bed capacity for a long time but we still don’t have extra capacity in the system,” he said.

“In the case of CUH, the reality is our attendances to ED have gone up but we are going in to this winter with less beds than we previously had.”

Last summer, former health minister Stephen Donnelly announced an additional 350 beds for CUH as part of the State's investment plan for the hospital system through to 2031 — the highest allocation of beds to any Irish hospital in the plan.

But only nine of an initial 18 new beds are due to open next week in what was formerly the hospital’s ophthalmology department.

Prof Deasy said: “That is not nearly enough to cope with the complexity of cases coming through our doors.

“There is a commitment for 350 new beds at CUH. We need to see them expedited. We need to find ways of delivering these beds at pace.

“We need a special dispensation around things like planning and procurement, as was the case during covid, to get these beds delivered quickly.”

The HSE has warned people that hospitals will be busier than ever this Christmas, to expect delays, and to consider other treatment options for mild illness or non-urgent conditions other than attending an ED.

But it also said there are some good signs, with the number of RSV cases among infants less than three months old down sharply since the HSE began a vaccination programme for newborns.

Just 24 babies were hospitalised with the respiratory illness since the vaccination programme started — down significantly from the 413 cases in the same period last year.

A surge in flu cases is also being reported across Europe.

The latest update from the European Centre for Disease Control shows almost all countries that report data observing “sharp increases” in indicators of both flu and RSV, with a visible impact in secondary care.

Given the circulation of flu viruses and RSV against a current background of relatively low-level transmission of covid, it said there is an additional risk for respiratory virus transmission with more social gatherings, shopping, and travelling ahead of Christmas.

It has urged states to prepare for the flu and RSV surge, to consider infection prevention and control practices in healthcare settings, including long-term care facilities, and to consider increasing capacity in the primary and secondary healthcare system.

It also said immunisation is the most effective measure to protect against severe viral respiratory disease and it urged people eligible for vaccination against flu, covid or RSV, especially those considered to be vulnerable, to get vaccinated as quickly as possible.