One million items of PPE delivered to nursing homes

Health authorities say they have been focusing efforts and resources on long-term residential care facilities, which have been badly impacted by coronavirus, as they bid to tackle the spread of Covid-19.

HSE chief executive Paul Reid told the body’s weekly briefing that 1,250 deliveries containing more than one million items of PPE have been made across the State.

He added: “It is a very challenging national infrastructure - some of these sites are very small sites located all across Ireland, and we are taking an approach to get to all of those sites.

“On Friday, 378 deliveries took place to nursing homes and 750,000 items of PPE were supplied.

“Nursing homes are being prioritised. That’s the kind of wide range of supports that we have in place and are putting in place and the prioritisation that we’re putting in terms of the PPE.”

He also said the HSE has provided accommodation for some care staff.

“Accommodation is being provided to almost 300 staff in those long-term care settings,” Mr Reid said.

“These are facilities to support staff who may have been previously co-located with other staff, and we want to stop the transmission of the disease, or other staff who are maybe living with somebody vulnerable at home, to provide them with some other location close to their area of work.

“So 300 people have taken up that offer since it was launched.”

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