Raigmore 'Red Alert' Over Admissions
46 operations were cancelled at the north's biggest hospital this week.
Raigmore Hospital is back on 'red alert' due to a large number of new admissions.
46 operations have been cancelled this week due to a lack of beds.
The situation had been downgraded to 'amber' during the week, but staff are again reporting a surge in demand.
Staff have opened up extra space to cope.
Director of operations Linda Kirkland said: "Procedures today are fine; we managed to hold most of the patients that they expected to bring in, delivering the care we can to them.
"But over the last few days we've had to cancel a number of procedures.
"The number of patients that have been admitted are very unwell.
"We're not expecting them to go home in the near future.
"That's one of the difficulties we have in predicting whether we can bring in patients over the weekend or on Monday morning.
"We have opened up an additional 37 beds in Raigmore Hospital to cope with demand.
"All our escalation processes have been followed and are maintaining us to the point where were are not at a major incident, as some of the other health boards have been."