No critical care bed available at any of four hospitals in region

There were no critical care beds available at any of the four hospitals in the wider region last evening (Wednesday).

Figures from the HSE published this morning show that Tullamore, Mullingar, Portlaoise and Portiuncula hospitals did not have a single critical care bed vacant at 6.30pm last night.

There were seven COVID-19 patients in critical care beds at Mullingar hospital, five in Mullingar, four in Portlaoise and two in Portiuncula, which also had a suspected case of COVID-19 being cared for in the critical care unit.

In total, there were 118 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the four hospitals at 8pm last night. Tullamore had the largest proportion, with 54, followed by Mullingar with 28, Portlaoise with 25 and Portiuncula with eleven.

Nine of those patients had been admitted in the 24 hours prior to 8pm last night and there were another four suspected cases of COVID-19.

The shortage of critical care beds was also somewhat reflected in the availability of general beds in the hospitals.

At 8am on Wednesday, there were 15 vacant general beds, eight in Tullamore, six in Mullingar and one in Portlaoise.

Portiuncula had no spare general or critical care beds.