The number of patients with Covid-19 at Letterkenny University Hospital has more than doubled in the past week.
On Christmas Day, the hospital was treating 19 patients with the virus.
By New Year’s Day, the figure had risen to 48.
As of 8pm last night, three patients with Covid-19 were in intensive care at LUH.
Letterkenny University Hospital is also dealing with an outbreak of Covid-19 onsite.
A number of elective surgeries have been postponed this coming week in order to redeploy staff to support essential emergency care.
Visiting is restricted to one person, per patient for a visit lasting 15 minutes per day, while there is no access to visitors in the outbreak areas.
Meanwhile, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation is calling for greater measures to be taken to reduce workplace transmission of COVID-19 in hospitals.
INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: “Our fragile health services are being held together at the moment by an exhausted nursing workforce who are experiencing high levels of burnout. Annual leave is being cancelled by many in order to fill rosters and many nurses are reporting that they are staying beyond their scheduled work hours to care for patients.”
The union is calling for non-emergency activity to be curtailed in Ireland’s acute public hospital system.
“Our public hospital system is too small to cope with servicing emergency care, COVID care and elective treatments. It is time for the State to step up and ensure that all capacity that can be gained from the private sector is used.
“The HSE and political system has a responsibility to an exhausted medical workforce to ensure their workplaces are as safe as they can be. There must be no tolerance for hospital overcrowding while a highly transmissible airborne virus is making its way around our hospitals. Improvements to air quality in our hospitals must be a priority. “
