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Faculty of Health Sciences

Faculty of Health Sciences - Activities Relating to Covid-19

Please note, this is not an information page regarding Covid-19. Please refer to the HSE website for Coronavirus information: www2.hse.ie/coronavirus/

Faculty Office - Procedure for Return to On-Site Working during Covid-19

  • Prior to returning to on-site working, each staff member must:
    • Complete the College induction via Blackboard
    • Read the Health Sciences Faculty Office resumption plan (ldohert@tcd.ie)
    • Attend an online meeting with the Dean and Faculty Administrator by way of local induction, to ensure all details are clear and all questions are answered in advance and to offer reassurance to all staff regarding the safety protocols that are in place
    • Complete the College back-to-work declaration form three days prior to return to site, and if returning from an absence of longer than 1 week
    • Complete the daily wellness self-check, for every day you attend campus
    • Download and use the SafeZone App
    • Staff will also be encouraged to use the Covid Tracking App
    • Staff will be asked to maintain a contact log while working on-site, this is for their personal use should they become symptomatic and need to provide details to the HSE etc during contact tracing.
    • Individuals with a pre-existing health condition placing them in a high-risk category should adhere to HSE guidelines and advice from their GP before coming on-site
    • On their first day returning to on-site working, each staff member must walk from their office to the designated isolation room (room 1.26) in order to make sure they are 100% clear on how to get there using the most direct route. A print-out of the room number, and contact details of people you must inform will be made available for each work station in the office, as well as for the boardroom.
  • Should someone become symptomatic while on-site, the Faculty Office staff will utilise the School of Chemistry’s isolation room (1.26), by contacting Manuel Ruether at 089-4230715. These details will be printed for display at each staff member’s work station.

The protocol for someone who becomes symptomatic while on-site is to:

    • put on the mask provided within your ‘hygiene and cleaning kit’
    • notify any other staff within the office that you feel symptomatic
    • notify / colleague to notify Manuel Ruether (0894230715) that the isolation room is required
    • go to the isolation room (room 1.26)
    • telephone College Health (01-896 1591 / 01-896 1556)
    • Follow the instructions of College Health
    • If you are instructed to go home, either go in your own car, alone, or order a screened taxi via the Faculty Office account
    • Follow the College Health and HSE instructions regarding self-isolation / restricting movements / etc
    • Notify the Dean and Covid Coordinator (Faculty Administrator) of the incident
    • the COVID-19 Coordinator must report the incident and the use of the isolation room to College Security at (01) 896 1317

Faculty Boardroom:

    • Visitors to Boardroom enter / leave via main Chemistry Building door, following the ‘keep right’ signage that is put in place under the School of Chemistry resumption plan.
    • Visitors to the Boardroom must arrive on-time and by appointment only. Some seating is provided, which has been re-orientated to side-by-side to facilitate social distancing of 2M. Seating should be wiped before each use, cleaning wipes are provided for this.
    • Visitors must enter and leave the boardroom via the digi-lock door, no access to the Faculty Office is permitted for visitors, no catering will be provided for meetings, and hand sanitiser must be used upon arrival.
    • All use of the boardroom must be pre-booked and recoded on the boardroom calendar; ad-hoc use of the boardroom for office work will not be permitted.
    • Chairs at the boardroom table will be marked as ‘out of use’ to ensure social distancing of 2M is adhered to. Maximum Boardroom capacity is now 10.
    • Windows in the Boardroom will remain open on days when meetings take place.
    • Face coverings will be worn by all attendees for the duration of the meetings.
    • Meeting durations will be limited to one hour, unless in exceptional circumstances to be approved by the Dean. Meetings will not be longer than 1hr 45 mins without a break for surfaces to be wiped-down and the room vacated and ventilated.
    • A log of attendees will be maintained for contact tracing purposed, the proposal is that a sign-in book is placed in the Boardroom for all persons to sign upon arrival (name, date, time, phone number). Attendees must use their own pen to minimise cross-contamination. These records will be kept for a two-week period and then shredded.
    • After each meeting, the table, chairs and high-touch surfaces such as door handles will be cleaned by the meeting organiser, using the wipes provided.

 

Once Off Staff / Student Requests for Access to Campus

Once-off requests for access to campus are managed by Estates & Facilities (estatesandfacilities@tcd.ie)

Once-off requests cover requests such as collecting a bike, collecting laptops, collecting exam material, etc. This does not relate to the resumption of work activity in a building or parking requests. Appointments can be requested through the Service Centre at estatesandfacilities@tcd.ie. Please include the following details:

1. Name
2. Staff / student number
3. Mobile Number
4. Date and Time for access
5. Locations of access (please be specific - building & room)
6. If driving, vehicle registration details (this is for once-off vehicle access only)

On-site Covid-19 testing

Prof David Coleman

Trinity’s School of Dental Science prepares to welcome students back on-site to the Dublin Dental University Hospital, where they will see all the changes that have been implemented over the last five months to ensure the safety of patients, students and staff. Signage has been added throughout, automatic temperature scanners are in place at all entrances, room capacities have been modified and seating plans put in place to facilitate social distancing. Over the past five months the School’s Microbiology Unit has implemented rapid systems for screening staff and students for SARS-Co-V2 antibodies and for screening individuals for SARS-Co-V2 infection. Professor David Coleman, Head of the Division of Oral Biosciences, is photographed here beside the School’s GeneExpert SARS-Co-V2 detection system. This is the machine used for on-site Covid-19 testing, which provides results within 40 minutes and can be used if anyone becomes symptomatic while on-site.

 

June Bank Holiday Greeting to Staff:

Staff Redeployments:

Many of our staff have volunteered to be redeployed, including staff in the School of Dental Science who are involved in Covid-19 testing, and staff in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences who are supporting community pharmacy activities.

The Dublin Dental University Hospital continues to provide an emergency service on-site as well as for other hospitals and the prison service, for patients who cannot otherwise access dental care.

Staff from the Department of Public Health & Primary Care within the School of Medicine are actively engaged in Covid-19 activities, including but not limited to coordinating the dedicated helpline set up to deal with Covid related queries from health professionals. Callers to the helpline typically include GPs, Directors of Nursing, hospital staff and other health care workers, and  GPs who provide occupational health services. The nature of the queries varies depending on when new guidance or change in guidance is issued. Commonest queries relate to management of outbreaks in general practice and in nursing homes/residential service. Queries address aspects such as testing of healthcare workers and patients, atypical symptoms, management of asymptomatic cases, requests for support around isolation facilities and return to work. 

Leading research on Covid-19:

Among a series of clinically driven projects to understand Covid-19, an additional seven researchers in Health Sciences have been successful in securing state funding for vital research into COVID-19 and the implications of the disease on the health and well-being of our nation and on our health service and public health decisions. The PIs of these projects are:

  • Dr Nollaig Bourke, Dept of Medical Gerontology, School of Medicine
  • Professor Catherine Darker, Associate Professor of Health Services Research, (interim) Head of Discipline, Public Health & Primary Care
  • Professor Orla Hardiman BSc, MD, FRCPI, FTCD, MRIA.  Professor of Neurology, Trinity College Dublin, Consultant Neurologist, Beaumont Hospital, HSE Clinical Lead in Neurology.
  • Professor Catherine Comiskey, Professor in Healthcare Statistics, School of Nursing and Midwifery.
  • Professor Mark Little, Professor/Consultant of Nephrology, Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine.
  • Professor Rose-Anne Kenny, The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) at Trinity College.
  • Dr Ignacio Martin-Loeches, Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine/Clinical Senior Lecturer

Full details can be found on the HRB website.

Providing additional spaces for our partner hospitals:

The fifth floor of the Institute of Population Health (IPH) in Tallaght has been transformed to enable oncology day patients from Tallaght Hospital to receive treatment in a safe environment. To ensure the safety of clinical trial patients who would normally attend the Clinical Research Facility in St James’s Hospital, we offered space in two of our clinical skills rooms in the Trinity Centre which  freed up important space within the hospital to allow treatment of infected patients. Early practical measures of support also included opening access to the Trinity carpark in St James’s Hospital to hospital colleagues.

Contact Tracing Centre:

Through the IUA, we were approached by the HSE to see if we could help with contact tracing efforts. Within days we had identified space within the School of Business, collected a list of volunteers with clinical experience and trained them so that we could open a Contact Tracing Centre to support the imperative mission that we track down the virus as the best option to interrupt its transmission. Our volunteer staff from Health Sciences have been augmented by staff from the Department of an Taoiseach who have been redeployed to this busy Centre. The capacity within the Contact Tracing Centre has been expanded from 10 stations per rota to 30 stations per rota.

Donations of equipment & expertise:

Across the Faculty, our PIs have grouped together to collect personal protection equipment (PPE), laboratory equipment, laboratory reagents and consumables, all of which have been distributed to our teaching hospitals at St James’s and Tallaght and to GPs in CareDoc.

Our researchers with relevant molecular diagnostics experience have volunteered their services to clinical testing laboratories to assist in processing samples.

Informing decisions at the national level:

Many of our faculty are informing decisions being made nationally and are communicating their expert advice on TV, radio and social media. There is Faculty representation on the Medical Leaders Forum established by the Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan, NPHET (National Public Health Emergency Team) and the National Research Ethics Committee (NREC) for COVID-19.  Each of our representatives at these fora are playing key roles in planning and response to Covid-19 and are feeding into the decision making around our national recovery.

School of Medicine

The School of Medicine has captured its extensive Covid-related activities in this comprehensive newsletter.