Letterkenny University Hospital is postponing elective procedures this week to redeploy staff to emergency care.
The hospital is dealing with a Covid-19 outbreak and very high numbers of patients attending the Emergency Department (ED).
There were 40 patients on trolleys at LUH this morning, as well as 37 Covid-19 patients recorded onsite last night.
Due to the significant impact on staff, management has decided to halt a number of elective procedures in order to redeploy staff to support essential emergency care.
Patients are being contacted directly if their procedure is being postponed, Saolta confirmed in a statement this evening.
All day surgeries due to take place tomorrow (FRI) and next week have been postponed. All routine inpatient surgeries scheduled for next week have also been postponed.
Time sensitive, urgent cases will proceed when it is safe to do them. The situation is being kept under constant review.
Out-patient services, ambulatory gynaecology, endoscopy and other non-theatre day cases will proceed.
The hospital regrets that patients are having their procedures postponed and would like to apologise for the delays.
Letterkenny University Hospital is also advising that people presenting to the Emergency Department are currently experiencing long waiting times.
The hospital has seen a significant increase in patients presenting to the hospital and many of these patients are very sick and need to be admitted to the hospital for treatment. In addition the hospital is caring for an increasing number of patients with COVID-19.
Given the volume of patients attending the Emergency Department, the hospital is asking the public to contact their GP during normal surgery hours or the NoWDOC GP Out of Hours service in the first instance if their health problem is not urgent.
The hospital is committed to treating everyone who presents at the ED; people are seen and treated strictly in order of medical priority.
As part of the hospital’s COVID-19 measures, patients should wait in the ED alone to help maintain social distancing. A companion will only be permitted in exceptional circumstances. This is to minimise the risk of infection and to keep everyone safe.
Patients are asked to please wear a face covering/mask when in the ED and to comply with any COVID-19 screening processes.
