The outbreak of the winter vomiting bug at one of the country's top hospitals is continuing to spread with over 150 confirmed cases, it emerged today.
To date 159 people — including 96 members of staff — have been struck down with the highly contagious virus at St Vincent's University Hospital in Dublin.
Nicholas Jermyn, chief executive of the hospital, confirmed around 50 elective operations had to be cancelled last week due to the bout of the virus. "It is going to peak hopefully over the next day or two and then we will see a downward trend," he said, as 16 new cases were confirmed today.
"We are doing everything possible, and as I said it is inevitable that it does spread." Mr Jermyn said all measures recommended by infection control experts were being implemented but it had now spread through nearly all departments in the hospital.
The hospital has appealed to the public, particularly children, to avoid visiting patients and any essential visits have been limited.
"It spread right through the hospital and we have the outbreak or sporadic outbreak in nearly all departments now within the hospital," he told RTE Radio.
"We are hoping now with the measures we have taken, with asking the public not to come in and visit patients, and the reduction we have had through the A&E departments, thankfully, to the public this weekend for example.
"Normally we would have about 100 cases a day of people coming in (to A&E) we now have about 70 people coming in on Saturday and Sunday."
Mr Jermyn said clinicians were now reviewing the outbreak in the hospital twice daily.
"We have had clinicians monitor daily and we unfortunately have had to defer up to 50 cases to date for procedures," he said.
"We are monitoring daily and we are still admitting some serious cases obviously that have to go ahead with procedures."