Tag Archives: Dr Catherine Motherway

FEARS have been expressed the new Omicron variant of Covid-19 may lead to staffing shortages in hospitals early in the New Year. Dr Catherine Motherway, a leading intensive care consultant at Limerick University Hospital, has voiced concern in a recent interview that the highly transmissible new variant will have a very significant impact on staff. The National Ambulance Service (NAS) meanwhile has put private operators on standby in expectation that high numbers of staff will be lost to Covid, coupled with an expected surge in call-outs in January. Case numbers soared nationally to 11,182 on Christmas Eve, with Omicron as the driving factor. The variant now accounts for 83pc of all cases. There were 38 confirmed Covid-19 patients in ICU at UHL on Tuesday, which was the third highest in the country after 51 were recorded in Beaumont Hospital and 38 in Tallaght. The HSE’s Performance Management and Improvement Unit has confirmed 12 of these confirmed cases are being treated …

A SENIOR intensive care clinician has warned health services are on a “war time” footing due to increasing cases of Covid-19. The head of the intensive care unit at University Hospital Limerick, Dr Catherine Motherway, has also stated some healthcare services will have to shut down, if Covid-19 figures continue to rise. Her warning came before official figures revealed the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the Mid-West totalled 5,381 from November 9 to November 22. There were 1,361 new cases of the virus in Clare, 1,975 in Tipperary and 2,045 in Limerick during this 14-day period. The 14-day incidence for November 22 is 1,145 in Clare 1,237 in Tipperary and 1,049 in Limerick per 100,000 population. Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland earlier this week, Dr Motherway said that healthcare staff are “stretched and operating on a day-to-day basis” and noted that patients may not receive the same level of care as they would “in peace time”. She also revealed …

ICU consultant Dr Catherine Motherway will be joined by frontline colleagues from University Hospital Limerick this Thursday in the local effort of a national fundraising cycle to commemorate those who have lost their lives to Covid-19. Dr Motherway urged the people of Limerick, Clare and Tipperary to support the ICU4U Memorial Charity Cycle, which aims to raise €150,000 for charity partners working with people impacted by the secondary challenges of the pandemic. The UHL team of frontline healthcare workers, some accompanied with family and partners, includes Eileen and Paddy O Neill, Anne Calitz, Mary Sexton, Vera Leahy, Hanin Hamza, David Murphy, Debbie and DJ Hayes, and Donal Ryan, as well as Catherine Motherway and Christy Curley. The four charity partners of this year’s ICU4U Memorial Charity Cycle are ALONE (supporting older people); Aware (mental health supports); Aware NI (depression supports in Northern Ireland) and Breakthrough Cancer Research (new treatments for poor prognosis and difficult to treat cancers). Tweet below features …