HSE stops testing nursing home transfer patients

Elderly now required to isolate for 14 days inside care homes once discharged from hospital

The nursing home sector has borne the brunt of the pandemic, with almost 5,000 nursing home residents, out of a total of about 32,000, testing positive for Covid-19

The HSE has stopped testing patients for Covid-19 before they are discharged from hospital to nursing homes.

The failure to test patients at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis was heavily criticised by Nursing Homes Ireland, which claimed that the transfer of patients to nursing homes was a “contributory factor” to the Covid-19 clusters in some of the facilities.

In a statement the HSE said that a previous requirement for testing had been “replaced by ...