Tallaght University Hospital asks local community to continue following public health guidelines
By Mary Dennehy
As RESTRICTIONS ease, Tallaght University Hospital has asked the community to continue following public health guidelines as they continue to care for patients with Covid-19 at the local hospital.
Last Friday, June 11, the HSE confirmed that eight adult hospitals, at that time, had no Covid patients, including St James’s in Dublin.
Tallaght Hospital has made significant progress
It was the first time since March 2020 that St James’s had no Covid-19 inpatients.
The paediatric hospitals at Crumlin, Temple Street and Tallaght also reported no Covid-19 inpatients last week.
Paul Reid, the CEO of the HSE, described the news via his Twitter account as a “great relief for patients, public and staff”.
While Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) was not included in the eight adult hospitals with zero Covid patients, it was down to low numbers of less than five.
However, the team at the local health facility has experienced an increase in Covid patients since the weekend.
In a comment to The Echo, Lucy Nugent, TUH CEO, said: “Whilst restrictions are being eased in our community, we would like to remind people that COVID-19 remains a threat and we still need to follow the necessary precautions i.e., social distancing, compliance with mask wearing and regular cleaning of hands.
“Last week the hospital was down to low numbers of less than five inpatients with COVID-19 but this has increased to 10 since the weekend.”
The Echo also spoke with the hospital about the current impact of last month’s cyber attack on the health service.
Ms Nugent told The Echo: “Tallaght University Hospital has made significant progress in recovering from the recent cyber-attack on the HSE Network, the hospitals own internal systems are fully up and running but we remain impacted by some national systems which have yet to be restored.
“I would like to acknowledge the incredible effort put in by our ICT team in getting everything back up and running but also to the medical and administration staff across the hospital that adapted to putting in work around solutions whilst the systems were being restored.”
For information on public guidelines in place as the community re-opens follow Tallaght University Hospital on Facebook or www.tuh.ie, or the HSE on Twitter.
