Health Minister Robin Swann meets Dr Tom Black of the BMA in March this year at Altnagelvin Hospital over Coronavirus screening in March this year
Dr Tom Black, of the British Medical Association, said that the NHS is being hit with a “triple whammy”, with huge numbers of staff of sick, winter pressures and a pandemic to deal with.
He said: “I have had dozens of emails, text messages and phone calls over the last 24 hours from doctors throughout the five trusts.
“They say the demand for capacity had reached a crescendo where we are now starting to exceed the capacity of hospitals to cope with this.”
Bed occupancy is now reported to be 102 per cent.
There are now 360 patients in hospital in the North with Coronavirus, with 38 in intensive care.
A total of 67 patients are being treated for the virus in Altnagelvin Hospital.
Two further deaths have been reported in the Derry and Strabane council area in the last 24 hours, with its total now at 41 since March.
Statistics show that there are currently outbreaks of Coronavirus in 105 care homes.
Added Dr Black: “To be frank it is the worst I have seen in my 35 years career.
“That would be the same for all doctors here.
“We have never seen anything like this.
“This is the worst week for the NHS in living memory and it looks likely next week will be even worse.”
Dr Black said the North of Ireland has a “very difficult” month ahead.
Wendy McGowan, Northern Trust’s director of operations, said: “We also have staff who are completely exhausted because of the amount of time they have been dealing with this and staff really struggling to cope themselves.
“On top of that we have a system that was struggling to cope prior to Covid-19.”
She said: “It does seem that NI seems to be in a much more difficult position that for example England.
“In England the figures that came out last Thursday said that about a third of their ICU beds were occupied by Covid patients.
“About 650 beds of around 4,000 critical care patients.
“So that gives them room for manoeuvre.
“We are talking about almost the entirety of our ICU beds being filled by Covid patients.”
Tags: