ON TUESDAY, THE Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar gave contradictory information about the rate of Covid-19 infection among healthcare workers in Ireland.
The second major issue that has affected staffing levels has been the infection rate among healthcare workers. At present, Ireland is top of the league and has the highest infection rate of healthcare workers globally. That is an absolute scandal. We have sought figures and the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, instructed that figures be issued on a weekly basis when he met us two weeks ago.
The evidence An analysis of data by the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, dated 21 June, shows that Irish healthcare workers made up 8,172 Covid-19 cases out of a total of 25,381.The claim by the INMO is that this figure is high by international standards. The organisation successfully gathered data from 30 countries, based on reporting by national nursing associations, government statistics and media reports. It has been calling on governments to keep accurate records of infections and deaths among healthcare workers and the ICN’s figures for healthcare worker infections globally were widely reported.
“There are definitional issues. There are probably some countries that are being more open and transparent about the reporting of data,” he said. The Department of the Taoiseach did not respond to an email from TheJournal.ie asking for information on the source of this data. When contacted by TheJournal.ie, a spokesperson for the HSE said that “there have been several studies worldwide of HCW [healthcare workers] Covid-19 infection rates which have shown a prevalence rate of 5 to 10% of HCWs, whereas in Ireland this prevalence rate is close to 1% of HCWs”.
Comparisons As the ICN acknowledges, international comparisons are difficult and the data used by the organisation has significant caveats. In April, the European Centre for Disease Control released some figures for infection rates among healthcare workers. In China, 3.8% were healthcare workers, while in some US states the figure reached 11%.
A HSE spokesperson said that “here, a HCW is anyone who works in any area of healthcare across community and hospital settings. It would include administrative staff, catering, maintenance, IT etc whereas in many other countries it is a narrower definition of frontline workers or even just doctors and nurses”.
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