NI-wide staff shortages as covid-hit health service struggles to cope

The growing pressures on Northern Ireland’s already crisis-hit health service can be laid bare today (Tuesday).

It follows an investigation by Downtown Radio and Cool FM into beds capacity issues and other concerns in Trusts which are currently stretched to the limit

The situation has been exacerbated by the fact that there are more covid inpatients than any other point since the virus arrived here, with only nine ICU beds left empty in Northern Ireland.

We found:

• Antrim Area Hospital is full beyond capacity

• A huge strain on services at Altnagelvin’s ICU

• A medical ward at the Ulster Hospital has been forced to close to new to new admissions because of an outbreak.

This is taking its toll on staffing levels across all health service roles. NHS staff have been widely called ‘Heroes’ in 2020, but unfortunately they are not immune to the virus, and must still self-isolate if they come into close contact with a positive colleague or patient.

We asked all five Health and Social Care Trusts for the total number of staff who were unavailable for work last Friday for covid related reasons, to get a snapshot of just how many workers are now missing in a day. These figures cover all job-roles within the trusts.

Belfast Trust said out of their 22,000 strong workforce, 1,185 people were not working that day, but couldn’t advise how many of those were for non-covid related reasons.

Northern Trust responded to say: "As of 23 October 2020 there were a total of 873 NHSCT employees recorded on the system as absent.

"Of this total 635 were on sick leave excluding COVID-19. 54 were on sick leave due to COVID-19 and 184 were self-isolating in relation to COVID-19." The spokesperson also said there might be some details missing on the recording system due to COVID-19 pressures and a “payroll closedown”.

In the Southern Trust on the same date, 527 employees were on leave for reasons linked to coronavirus.

Western Trust replied to Downtown Cool FM news to say: “As of 23 October 2020, 1,278 staff were not available to us in the Western Trust, however it is important to note that 636 are non COVID related.”

Meanwhile South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust said 74 staff were covid positive on that day, 46 workers were symptomatic, another 142 needed to self-isolate, and 11 more were shielding.

The situation is ever-fluid though – SEHSCT gave those figures for Friday 23rd October, but by yesterday evening, the number of symptomatic staff had risen from 46 to 105, while the number of isolating employees rose by 42 in that same window.

The Royal College of Nursing’s Director, Pat Cullen, urged the public to be patient in light of these hugely stressful times for health services: "Currently our intensive care units are facing very serious problems in relation to getting enough nursing staff,” she said.

“Operations are getting cancelled and there are a number of other pressures on emergency care and district nursing.

“We are very concerned about the impact this is having on services, and we would ask the public to be patient. Nursing staff are doing the very best they can under very strained circumstances."