A number of hospitals around the country are refusing to allow visitors in because of high levels of flu.
Dublin's Mater hospitals telling people to stay away unless it's "absolutely neccessary" to come in.
University Hospital Waterford has also banned visitors, and is reminding the public that they should only present at the Emergency Department when referred by their local GP as it is 'extremely busy'.
In a statement the hospital said
Due to a high volume of people presenting at University Hospital Waterford hospital management is appealing to both adults and children who are experiencing any signs or symptoms of influenza to contact their local health provider (GP/Caredoc out of hours service) in the first instance prior to attending the Emergency Department.
It is FLU season. Flu injection available @your GP/pharmacy. To minimise the risk to patients/visitors contracting the Flu we continue to restrict visitors to all inpatients except those who are critically ill & parents of children who are inpatients. Thank you for your support pic.twitter.com/zwYFzHi4hI
— Univ Hosp Waterford (@UHW_Waterford) January 2, 2020
