More than 70 doctors responded to a call by Cork University Hospital at the weekend to redeploy to its intensive care unit to deal with the surge in Covid-19 cases.
Chief Operations Officer for South/Southwest Hospital Group Dr Orla Healy said that while the situation is being managed, the preference would be to have qualified ICU nurses at the appropriate ratio of one per bed, but this is currently not possible.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Dr Healy said it has been exceptionally busy across all hospitals in the group, but Covid-19 has put particular pressure on CUH, which struggled to recruit nurses prior to the pandemic.