A nursing home has been left ravaged by Covid-19 with 12 tragic deaths of residents in recent weeks – including four within a 24-hour period between Sunday and yesterday.
There was huge shock and grief at Greenpark Nursing Home in Tuam, Co Galway, as the outbreak occurred and the disease spread during the past three weeks.
Director of nursing Brian McNamara told RTE Radio 1’s Drivetime: “We’ve been hit with an horrific tidal wave and that’s the best way I can describe it.
“A week before we were due to get our vaccine, our first residents started to test positive for Covid-19 and it’s been absolutely horrendous since.”
"It’s so hard to see these people, they might have had small things wrong, but they weren’t ready to die and to be so cruelly taken away by this horrible disease, it's indescribable.
“Tuam is a small community...it’s so gut-wrenching.”
"I'm desperately trying to get more nurses in through the agencies. The agencies are fantastic, they’ve provided us with healthcare assistants but nurses seems to be short,” he said.
"We need nursing help if we can get it, if there's people out there who want to help we would gladly accept their help.”
A further 1,062 coronavirus cases were confirmed in Ireland yesterday while sadly another 10 deaths were announced.
Ireland's death toll now sits at 3,317 with a large portion of those occurring this year alone.
