THERE has been transmission of Covid-19 within UHW but everything that can be done is being done to contain it, the General Manager has said.
Grace Rothwell says the problem - which did "concern" her - had emerged because of people only developing symptoms two or three days after admission.
All patients, including those non-Covid, are swabbed at the point of entry to the hospital, she told Deise Today this morning.
She says known Covid positive cases are absolutely not placed in wards with non Covid patients.
But there has been instances, she conceded, where asymptomatic patients had later developed symptoms and in the intervening time, had potentially passed it to others within wards.
She said that's why it's hugely important that anyone who presents at UHW needs to tell staff straight away about their close contacts.
Grace Rothwell also told Damien Tiernan this morning that things at UHW "were a little bit calmer".
"Yesterday (Wednesday), we were recorded as the hospital in the country with the highest number of positive Covid-19 patients; we had 127 yesterday but it's now down a little bit (118 today)," she said.
Wednesday night had been a "quieter night" while, she maintained, there were a couple of other "good signs" that indicated things were starting to ease.
The positivity rate in terms of lab samples was down substantially on what it had been even days ago (from 17.6% to 10%) and an allocation of a second dose of vaccine had been received yesterday which means that all those who received the first vaccine, will now get the second dose.
She said the Dunmore wing of the hospital had been a "Godsend" in terms of providing single rooms for patients and UHW had an advantage over many other hospitals in this regard.
She told Damien there were still in the region of 200 staff members out of work at the moment but some of these were due to return very soon which was good.
While she did have "concerns" about hospital-acquired infection, management and staff at UWW were very pro-active in terms of doing everything they could to contain it.
She explained that because the level of transmission amongst the public was much more prevalent than in the first wave of the virus, it was very difficult to prevent transmission completely.
She said the basic messages were still hugely important; people need to stay at home, maintain good hand hygiene, wear their facemasks and seek medical advice if unwell.
You can listen back to the full interview with Grace Rothwell by clicking below here...
