The HSE is continuing to battle to get its hands on vital Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to help frontline workers fight Covid-19.
HSE Chief Executive Paul Reid said 33 million items of PPE from a batch one order, worth €31 million, had been fully distributed.
He said any product issues relating to that batch have now been fully addressed, and batch two had commenced yesterday.
To speed up the supply of PPE, he said the HSE has asked Chinese suppliers to consolidate more deliveries into batch two.
That will be an order worth €130 million. It will include supplies of gowns and overalls.
In Donegal, it appears that the supply of PPE varies from place to place.
Consultant Peter O’Rourke said that Letterkenny University Hospital has adequate supplies.
However, it is understood that other frontline workers including home-helps are struggling to get regular PPE supply.
Local voluntary groups are doing trojan work in making their own PPE supplies to help local frontline workers.
Additional supply lines have also been opened with other suppliers to meet demand, the HSE CEO said.
“We continue to urge all healthcare workers to be extremely prudent in the use of PPE and to ensure that is used for the correct purposes”, Mr Reid told the media briefing.
Mr Reid said early last week over a million items of PPE were distributed across 1,250 deliveries. On Friday alone, he said, 378 deliveries took place to nursing homes.
“Three-quarters of a million items of PPE on Friday were delivered”, according to Mr Reid, who said that nursing homes have been prioritised regarding the distribution of PPE.
He also said that the backlog for Covid-19 testing had been “eliminated”. “There is a zero backlog,” he added.
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