The uptake rate of the flu vaccine among healthcare workers is “dismal”, the president of the Irish Medical Council has said, amid growing pressure on the State’s hospital system from the seasonal virus.

The number of the cases of the virus has increased in recent weeks, and is expected to peak around Christmas time when there could be up to 1,500 people in hospital.

The most recent Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) figures show there were 2,944 cases of the flu reported between November 30th and December 6th, up 49 per cent on the previous week. The number of flu hospitalisations also increased to 657 last week, up from 415.

According to the infectious diseases watchdog, 73 per cent of flu cases in intensive care were unvaccinated individuals. There have also been 13 flu deaths this winter season so far, the organisation said.

Despite this, the latest HPSC figures from the show that up to December 7th, only 29 per cent of HSE healthcare workers had received the flu jab.

The number is slightly higher than the 27 per cent recorded during the same period last year, but still well below the target rate of 75 per cent.

The Medical Council’s Dr Suzanne Crowe, a consultant in paediatric intensive care medicine at Children’s Health Ireland Crumlin, described this rate as “very low” and attributed this to past flu experience or lack thereof, or staff members wanting to avoid potential side effects.

“If you’re already working a lot of back-to-back shifts that week, lots of staff will say they can’t really face a day or so of not feeling great,” she said, though she believes side effects of the vaccine “can be overplayed in staff members’ minds”.

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She added that staff might feel as though they are “again being asked to go the extra mile, again being asked to put their own concerns to the side and get vaccinated to protect others”.

“Maybe we’re just seeing a little bit of burnout or a bit of fatigue around that messaging, which is sad because people genuinely do care about patients.

“I just feel that maybe staff are not standing in solidarity with patients as much as we could be, and that’s a tricky thing to say,” she said.

Dr Crowe said that with the 75 per cent vaccination target not being met, “we need to really explore that in a very open-minded and compassionate way”.

Dr Crowe said although a predictable rise in hospital attendances due to flu cases was expected, it is “exceeding” expectations.

“All of the emergency departments, paediatric and adult, are just swamped with sick people. That’s on top of our usual workload of sick people,” she said.

She said the health service is now “doubly hit” amid an increase in presentations from the community alongside “lots of staff sickness”.

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“I think people just don’t fully appreciate the huge impact across the whole health service when you get something like this. Part of it is because we’re operating on the margins of capacity at all times,” she said.

Noting that the circulating strain, H3N2, has mutated several times over the summer months, she said there is no residual herd immunity in Ireland.

“It’s so infectious and, unfortunately, there will be a lot of hospital admissions, and there will be some deaths, which is very sobering,” she said.