Tadhg Daly Nursing homes were left isolated as the Government rushed to prioritise hospitals as the coronavirus struck, it has been claimed.
The chief executive of Nursing Homes Ireland has told the Oireachtas Committee on Covid-19 that key State organisations left nursing homes and their residents isolated in the early days of the pandemic.
The NHI and the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIAQ) are discussing their roles in managing the virus in the nursing home sector.
Tadhg Daly said that nursing homes were isolated “in the early days” of the pandemic.
Responding to a question from Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson Louise O’Reilly, who asked why there was no plan forthcoming when all the international experience said there was a need for a plan, Mr Daly said there should have been a national plan and there had been an overt focus on the acute hospitals sector to the exclusion of community care.
Mr Daly said the surge that was expected in hospitals happened in the nursing home sector.