Irish private hospitals set to be treated as public

Private hospitals are set to be treated as public amid the coronavirus pandemic in Ireland, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar has announced.

Euronews reports that the public-private agreement will see 19 private hospitals leased for use as public ones.

RTE reports that eight more people have died from Covid-19 in Ireland and 295 new cases have been diagnosed today. There have now been 54 Covid-19 related deaths in the country, with 2,910 confirmed cases of the virus.

Of the eight additional deaths, six were in the east of the country, one was in the south and one was in the west. The patients included five females and three males and six of those had underlying medical conditions.

Via Euronews / RTE