Hospital beds could run out warns top GP
One of Northern Ireland’s leading medics warned today (Monday) that a spike in Covid cases here could result in a dearth of hospital beds.
Dr Tom Black said the crisis-hit health service was now at tipping point.
And the BMA’s Council chair, added that action was needed right away.
It comes after the number of hospital inpatients increased again over the weekend.
The latest figures show 137 Covid patients are currently in hospital, while 19 are in ICU.
The number of positive Covid-19 cases in NI exceeded the 1,000 mark again.
Yesterday (Sunday) 1,066 people tested positive out of 6,024 tests and one person died.
This is the second highest number of Covid-19 positive cases recorded here.
He said: “We’ve seen a huge number of Covid cases in the North West in the last three to four weeks, in fact we’ve seen more cases in the last ten days than we saw in the previous 8 months.
“As patients with Covid infection become more severely ill they need to be admitted to hospital and we will run into a problem where we won’t have enough beds in hospitals to look after these patients.
“We also run the risk of pressure on intensive care beds because again over the next few weeks as patients become more severe, they will need more intensive care beds and Northern Ireland will have to cope with this increased demand.”
Dr Black has urged members of the public not to visit older relative or clinically vulnerable family members to try and curb the rate of infections.
He added: “If you’ve any symptoms, or if you think you’ve been socialising too much, stay away from your granny, do not socialise with older people.
“It’s up to the politicians to decide, looking at the balance of education and the economy, whether we should have a full lockdown again.
“But it’s also clear that the public in the North West have already gone into lockdown.
“They understand they have the worst Covid infection rate in the United Kingdom.”
Derry and Strabane District Council had increased restrictions placed on the area last week after the infection rate skyrocketed there.
Concerns were also raised over the fact that the City of Londonderry borders Donegal, which was placed under level three restrictions by the Republic of Ireland Government.
Dr Black’s message comes after the First Minister, Arlene Foster took to Facebook this morning to give an update about the current Coronavirus situation across the country.
She warned that “big decisions” will have to be made by the Executive this week to try and tackle the spread of the virus.
The First Minister said: “We need to halt the spread of the virus otherwise it’s going to have a hugely detrimental impact on our health service.
“Heavier restrictions are not inevitable.
“I’ve been saying that for some time and if people just went back to basics and engaged in social distancing, having good respiratory hygiene, washing their hands and of course wearing their masks in the appropriate places.”
The DUP leader said the decisions the Executive will have to make are “far from straight forward” and emphasised that the choices made will not be based on “health versus wealth”.
She added: “Those decisions are far from straight forward and certainly cannot be characterised, as some people try to, that it’s health versus wealth because of course at a very basic level if you lose your job, if your business goes under and you end up in poverty then of course that too has health implications.
“We need to take into account societal and family impacts including of course the education of our young people and their life chances and of course we very much need to take into account the economic well-being of us all.
“But what they will contain for me is weighing up some very big choices as we seek to do what is right by all of our people.”
The First Minister and Deputy First Minister joined a remote emergency Cobra meeting this morning with the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, and the other devolved nations.
It is understood the Executive will meet earlier than Thursday.