The rooms were closed on Thursday, two days after a 90-second video filmed at a public clinic in Athlone spread rapidly online. By Thursday morning, the clip had been viewed 2.1 million times. It shows a wall display indicating 7 micrograms of fine particles per cubic metre as a portable meter held at patient height reads 88.
The discrepancy has forced a rapid review of a programme launched in August, after smoke from peatland and scrub fires brought repeated air-quality alerts to parts of Ireland. The state’s National Respiratory Access Service said 23 of 31 rooms checked so far will remain out of use while monitors are repositioned and ventilation is tested.
How the readings diverged
The rooms, spread across 12 counties, were fitted with air purifiers and monitors so adults with asthma or chronic lung disease could wait for appointments away from polluted air. The state spent €1.6 million (about US$1.9 million) on the first installation. The service said the remaining eight rooms had passed initial checks and could continue operating.
In the video, the portable meter is held several steps from a purifier, while the wall monitor sits beside its air outlet. A caption says the readings were taken within the same minute. Jovani Dibbert-Pacocha, who filmed the test as a volunteer with a local air-quality group, said the clinic had given him permission to record the equipment but not patients.
We cannot keep calling a room clean because a screen says so.
Tatu A. Lehtinen, indoor-air researcher
Clinics move appointments
Lehtinen, who studies indoor pollution at the fictional Atlantic Institute of Public Health, said a sensor beside a purifier’s outlet can record a pocket of filtered air rather than the air people breathe across a room. “The number may be accurate for that spot and still give patients the wrong picture,” he said. He cautioned that one video cannot establish how long pollution levels stayed high.
Amanda Mills, operations director of the National Respiratory Access Service, said checks at 27 rooms found that 23 had monitors positioned too close to purifier outlets. At 16 of those sites, portable readings taken at seating height exceeded the World Health Organization’s 24-hour guideline of 15 micrograms per cubic metre during a smoke alert.
Four hospitals have moved respiratory appointments to other rooms or offered remote consultations while the checks continue. Mills said the service had no evidence that anyone had been made ill by using the facilities, but apologised to patients who relied on them. “We described these rooms as a refuge. That promise has to be backed by measurements people can trust,” she said.
The service plans to publish results from all 31 rooms by 15 October, after testing them at several points in each room and checking airflow with doors open and shut. It has also asked clinics to tell patients in advance if a clean-air room is unavailable. The next smoke alert, officials said, will be a test of whether the fixes work.
