Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
CHILDCARE FACILITIES ACROSS the country re-opened this morning after the Christmas break.
Providers, who have been asked to prioritise the children of essential workers, are seeking clarity from government on how they are to manage this and a more definite timeline for the return of their other services.
Following the announcement of further restrictions last week, the government confirmed childcare services would continue to operate from 4 January. Childminding can also continue, both in the child’s home and in the minder’s home.
This excludes pre-school services, which are not due to resume until 11 January.
Who will be prioritised?
The government asked childcare providers to reopen as planned from today to provide childcare, “particularly to priority groups”.
Under Level 5 of the government’s Covid-19 plan, there is a long list of services that are deemed ‘essential’:
Not all workers in these categories are considered essential workers. ‘Retail trade’, for example, is confined to ‘essential retail outlets’ such as supermarkets.
The Department of Children said it would provide guidance to services on how to prioritise demand for places. Over the weekend, it did provide some guidance to providers, but there was little detail on how to manage the prioritisation.
The guidance document states that services are being asked to provide childcare for “the children of essential workers – with a link to the long list above – and vulnerable children”.
‘Vulnerable children’ include those who are sponsored under the National Childcare Scheme and those funded under legacy schemes who are experiencing poverty, disadvantage or child welfare issues as well as children with additional needs who may benefit from immediate re-engagement.
The guidance also states that the minister has asked parents to keep their children at home if they do not fall within these categories to ensure there are places for those who need them most.
Minister Roderic O’Gorman has said there is no plan to refine the current essential worker list for childcare purposes. He said he thought this would create “additional confusion”.
How are childcare providers deciding who gets priority?
Teresa Heeney, CEO of Early Childhood Ireland, told TheJournal.ie that providers are seeking clarity on how to manage prioritisation.
She said parents have taken on board the call to keep their children at home if they are not essential workers.
“Some parents are splitting shifts, some are bringing the children to the creche for three hours rather than six and so on, so there’s collaboration about what’s best and what can be achieved,” she said.
“There were definitely fewer parents turning up, I’d say it’s between 20% and 30% capacity today.”
“Services are trying to do their best for parents. Many are operating on a restricted timetable so maybe they used to stay open until 6pm and are now closing at 4pm. They have time then after that for the additional cleaning,” Heeney explained.
In terms of the prioritisation, that’s something we’re seeking clarification from government on. Providers are doing it, but it very much depends on what parents are saying they need and what they can provide.
“But it’s not a position members want to be in, to make those judgements on who needs the place most, whether it’s needed more by the person producing food or the person going into the lab. They are of equal importance so we really do need help if we are to stay open.
Heeney said if childcare services are to remain open, workers should be given priority for vaccinations and should have access to rapid testing.
“A lot of members purchased private tests before returning this week so they could feel secure and give assurance to staff and parents, but that’s an untenable cost they cannot possibly bear alone,” she said.
Providers also want the government to confirm as soon as possible this week whether pre-school services will be expected to resume next Monday.
“Members are working really hard to plan how to open safely and they need to find out what demand is there and how to supply it,” she said. “They need clarity on this as early as possible in the week.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Thank you nurses, and a bigger thanks to any student nurses in the covid icu’s
@RJ: doctors?
@Ciaran bolger: It seems to be in vogue these days not to appreciate doctors. Nurses have a maximum amount they work a week, while for a doctor it’s unlimited. Many back to back full 24 hour shifts. 12 and 19 days in a row of work is not out of place.
Have been living a nightmare for weeks, my brothers wife is in ICU and is fighting for her life. Each day is unbearable, she’s early 40′s with three small children, progressively declined to the extend that her lungs are destroyed. I have walked her mother to the ICU ward door everyday this week so she can spend some time with her daughter, knowing as she leaves each visit could be her last. My brother and his kids are heartbroken, their lives have been destroyed. The agony and anguish is unbearable, it could have been different, she was so cautious, but because people in our community felt they had to have a party, and subsequently carried on with their lives despite having symptoms and created a super spreading event in our community.
10 mins in the wrong place with the wrong person is going to take her life, destroy her family, alter their lives forever. There are no words.
@Stephen: Oh god, that’s awful. I really hope she pulls through this, absolutely tragic. My cousin & his wife (they married in hospital, they were that unwell) were in a very dire place a few weeks ago & it was not looking good at for them whatsoever. But they have got progressively better better to the point they are off ventilators & are recovering. I hope their story gives you a little hope that, that too, can happen with your sister in law. I wish her a speedy recovery.
@Stephen: Thank you for sharing that with us. I cant even imagine what it must be like
@Stephen: this is terrible Stephen. People just don’t understand how bad this virus is . This shouldn’t have happened to your sister in law or family . The very best wishes and hopefully this lady will pull through and have many happy days ahead with her family
@Kevin O’Brien: Thank you, it does help to hear your story.
According to the OECD we have one of the lowest ratios of ICU beds per capita in Europe, which also doesn’t help the situation.
@Jules: And had a year to sort that out but our government rolled the dice assuming they wouldn’t be needed, o how wrong a gamble that was.
@Jason Walsh: can’t be done in a year. Every ICU bed requires 6 highly trained medical staff in service. Not possible to train that amount of people even in that time. You could easily provide the beds but not the personnel. The damage to our ICU was there long before Covid.
@Jules: Thats mad about the beds …. and apparently the HSE runs one of the best health care systems in the world!!. The world health organisation ranks us 18th in the whole world, thats amazing, but hey we’re Irish so its a national sport to run things down. The much talked about UK national health service is ranked 17th.
@Fergal Doyle: All the evidence out there and you are still in denial Fergal?
We should be number one in the world due to our small population, excellent education and the amount of money that is allocated to our health care service. Sadly due to poor leadership and management skills, we will never see improvements.
@Gerard Smith: if there was a will there would be a way
And still people wont listen & stay at home & adhere to restructions. No fixing the thicks!
Long winded way of saying we are in trouble if the current trend in hospitalizations continues.
@Joe_X: Sobering read. Shouldn’t we be expecting hospitalization numbers to come down with the case numbers soon? I cant get my head around that.
@Vonvonic: I would hope so, but it will probably be another week or so before we start seeing a decline those numbers. The fact that they were adding backlogged numbers last couple weeks has muddied the waters, so we cannot compare new cases then to hospitalizations now.
@Joe_X: Yeah. We should start seeing alot of people being released from hospital soon too. I could be wrong but I think if we can get our numbers under 1500 or so we should start to see it decline then.
@Vonvonic: not at 2000+ cases a day….about 5% end up in hospital and 0.5% in ICU…. hospital numbers will keep.going up.
@Cosmos20202020: So that’s 100 cases. Shouldn’t we be having releases in excess of that pretty soon though?. What’s the average amount of time spent in hospital?
@Vonvonic: Well how long does it take from when someone gets infected to a point where they are leaving icu? I think 5 days before they gets symptoms is common, few days later they could end up in hospital. Few days after that in icu and then god knows how long before they recover because every case is different but overall it takes long time. By that logic I’d expect 2 weeks anyway before we see the icu situation improving after the daily cases started to drop. I’m no expert but that seems to be the case and is why they are expecting it to get worse this week anyway before they start seeing light.
@Vonvonic: If you are very sick with covid, then you could be in hospital for months, not just two weeks like the asymptomatic cases. The rate of newhospitalisations may drop but we could still run out of capacity because those in icu may be there for a long time.
Stay at home, simple.
Definitely not nice reading, so we are nearly at breaking point.
@Paul Somers: They could just as easily have written an article that hospital numbers are close to peaking and are expected to start falling shortly
Exactly, our beds per capita were very low to begin with. That’s why we’ve had to have yo-yo lockdowns. Other countries could handle more hospitalisations.
It means our health system is ducked up , who knew?
What is there to say, except both FG & FF are to blame for bed shortages. They have been in power for the last 100 years. Hospitals are not fit for purpose at the best of times, never mind during a pandemic. Nurses and doctors regularly at breaking point before the current situation.
@3isamagicnumber: you can’t just put ICU beds in at the drop of a hat. Like someone said above its not about the beds it’s about the personnel to look after the people in those beds. And it doesn’t help that so many nurses and doctors have now had to stop working becausse they have the virus.
@Sam Harms: It’s not today nor yesterday we knew we were under manned and under resourced in our hospitals it’s been flagged for a long time.Far too much money for fluff plum managerial positions and not nearly enough at the pointy end. HSE is like an upside down pyramid when it comes to where the money goes
Just reading that is certainly an eye opener! Please stay safe and follow guidelines or this could happen to you or someone you know and love
Reading this is certainly an eye opener! Please follow the guidelines or you could or someone you love could end up in this situation which is terrifying
It means the beacon should be cpo’d since as we are in a national health emergency
Fergal O’Hagan Essential worker…can’t stay at home
THE WOULD RATHER PUT ALL THE MONEY INTO STATE OF THE ART CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL, THAN SAVE PEOPLE’S LIVES.
Main stream media can spin this anyway they want. They can blame the young, the stupid, and the anti vaccine brigade. But the simple fact is the consistent inaction by governments to address the issues in public healthcare means our system has no surge capacity and has not had for the last 20 years. A&Es bursting at the seams, people that should be being cared for in the community taking up acute beds, they want the whole thing privatised the beef baron doesn’t only own meat processing plants he has a big paw in private healthcare as well. Our corrupt politicos will find a way to funnel the cash to their cronies and they don’t care who dies in the process.
@Vonvonic: The average hospital stay is 18 days I think. Around day 12-16 of infection is when most end up needing hospitalization. The average ICU stay is around 21 days.
Imagine if in 2019 the government had asked everyone to spend the whole winter at home, closed all bars, restaurants and venues, because we had 10,000 people on trolleys in hospitals? That’s compared to a total official hospital capacity of 14,000 beds.
have your say