Patients treated in car parks as pressure mounts on Northern Ireland health service overcapacity

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PATIENTS were treated in car parks as lines of ambulances formed outside various hospitals in Northern Ireland as pressure on the overcapacity of the region’s health service continued to mount.

The scenes unfolded when Prime Minister Arlene Foster took part in a call with other UK political leaders to review the planned relaxation of restrictions on family gatherings during Christmas.

Medical staff return a bed to an ambulance at Antrim Area Hospital, Co Antrim in Northern IrelandCredit: PA: Press Association

Ambulances at the entrance to the emergency department with a vehicle number with patients waiting to be admitted to the Antrim Area HospitalCredit: PA: Press Association

Medical staff among the lines of ambulances, many with patients inside, in the parking lot outside the Antrim Area Hospital tonight

No decisions were made, and Stormont ministers will meet to discuss the situation on Thursday amid increasing calls from doctors to rethink the relaxations and introduce new measures to slow the spread of the virus.

At that meeting, Health Minister Robin Swann will propose a series of new restrictions on executive colleagues.

He told the MLAs: “I will present a document to the executive on Thursday with a series of recommendations.”

MORE DIFFICULT PERIODS

Medical Director Dr. Michael McBride warned that the region is now facing one of the most challenging periods of the pandemic after the most recent circuit lockdown failed to reduce infections.

Hospital capacity across the region stands at 104 percent today.

At one point outside the Antrim Area Hospital, 17 ambulances with patients were lined up outside the emergency room. Doctors treated patients in the parking lot.

Northern Trust COO Wendy Magowan said a patient has waited 10 hours in an ambulance overnight.

She said: “We have never known that at the Antrim hospital, that just doesn’t happen, but there was no safe area to bring that patient.”

Today the deaths of six other people with Covid-19 were announced, bringing the region’s death toll to 1,135.

‘KEPT UNDER REVIEW’

Another 486 new cases of the virus were registered in 24 hours.

Dr McBride said Northern Ireland is not where it should be in terms of case numbers at the start of a fortnight of holiday relaxations, including a five-day period of increased family gatherings over Christmas and said it was important that the arrangements for the holiday season were “Kept under review.”

Describing the situation at Northern Trust, Magowan said 43 people were waiting for an emergency bed at Antrim Area Hospital and 21 at Causeway Hospital this morning.