How we made a difference during Covid
At the Brennan & Co Group we are incredibly proud of the role we played during the Covid pandemic and of all our staff who worked tirelessly to support our customers and partners during this crisis. Our Clinical Diagnostics team engaged with the HSE following calls to secure critical mobile diagnostic equipment to increase blood testing capabilities within hospitals and within expanded ICU facilities. Brennan & Co managed to negotiate the supply of 64 new instruments which was far more than Ireland would otherwise have been allocated given the significant international demand for the products. We were very proud of the fact that we could leverage our relationships to ensure that the hospitals in Ireland were ahead of the international curve and could provide this life saving equipment. Our internal team went above and beyond the call of duty to install, integrate to hospital networks and train the teams of healthcare professionals across dozens of locations, despite the fear and uncertainty around transmission of the virus, they stood up and put others before themselves.
Our medical imaging team sourced and provided 24 mobile Ultrasound machines and 13 Mobile Xray machines to both the HSE and the Northern Trusts in NI to ensure that delivery schedules to Ireland were prioritized thus allowing us to support the HSE and NHS to quickly increase their capacity.
Brennan & Co SVS are a supplier of critical component parts to the Medtronic Bennett 980 ventilator and COVID19 created a significant increase in demand (circa 500%) worldwide for this product. As a critical supply partner, and with huge effort from our team and our manufacturing partners, we ensured continuity of supply and significant volume increases on a timely basis to meet the production schedules of Medtronic. This allowed us to play our part in fulfilling the high demand for ventilators thus providing vital support for hospital patients with Covid.
Our Life Sciences division worked closely with the manufacturer of PCR Instrumentation and reagents to supply for the outsourced HSE COVID 19 test and trace service. Our team of specialists worked closely with Enfer, the HSE, the National Virus Reference Laboratory and the manufacturer to specify, source, install and integrate the machinery into the laboratory in Kildare and we secured the ongoing supply of reagents in the face of huge international demand. This was the project which allowed the HSE to increase testing capacity to 100,000 tests per week which was the target publicly announced by NPHET on their evening press conferences. Our staff worked tirelessly in a stressful situation amid mounting political pressure to ensure that delays were avoided. We are very proud of all that our staff achieved in this regard.
Our product specialists also worked directly with the National Virus Reference Laboratory to provide additional re-agents and consumables needed to maintain the testing and tracing system. Brennan & Co along with our supplier NEB, were a trusted partner throughout the pandemic.
In September 2020, Brennan & Co received a letter from Paul Reid, CEO of the Health Service Executive to “recognise and thank you and your dedicated teams that have been working tirelessly to maintain our testing and tracing service during this challenging time of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
In 2021 we were recognized by the Sandyford Business District for our efforts during Covid and were award winners in the category of ‘Hero in a Crisis’.
We were incredibly proud to have been part of this project and to have received this acknowledgement of the dedication of our staff, who were indeed, heroes in this crisis.