Long drives still out of bounds for golfers – Connacht Tribune

As coronavirus spread to Europe earlier this year, ravaging Italy and Spain especially, critical care nurses in University Hospital Galway (UHG) waited in trepidation.

Like most workers in the health system – and the wider public, too – they watched the pandemic unfolding on the continent, knowing full-well it was on its way to Ireland.

“Everyone was genuinely really frightened and worried. We’d all seen the footage, especially from Italy, and they (staff) were all really apprehensive,” responds Ann Conroy from Caherlistrane, when asked for her initial reaction when it dawned on her, and her colleagues, what horrors might be coming down the tracks.

As Clinical Nurse Manager Grade 3 at UHG, Ms Conroy, who has worked as a nurse for twelve years, is responsible for managing nursing in the critical care department at the West’s busiest hospital, including the Intensive Care Units.

Critical care departments in Italian hospitals were swamped by the surge in Covid-19 patients presenting, and the fear was Irish hospitals, including Galway, could be overwhelmed, too.

Before it reached UHG, a massive effort went in to up-skilling staff and retraining theatre nurses to work in ICU, which requires completely different skill-set, but it was still scary.

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