Covid-19: Elective surgery cancelled at Craigavon Hospital

Elective surgery at Craigavon Hospital has been cancelled this week as it expands its intensive care capacity.

The Southern Trust said it had experienced a significant surge in Covid-19 cases in the community and its hospitals in a statement on Wednesday.

It said there had been challenges due to staff absence and isolation measures.

More than 500 staff in the Southern Trust area are off work, for Covid-19 related reasons.

The decision has affected 68 patients and the trust said those procedures would be rescheduled over the coming weeks.

The move comes after Northern Ireland's medical leaders called for "breathing space" as health services come under increasing pressure due to Covid-19.

The Royal Colleges of Surgeons, General Practitioners and Physicians have urged the public to help an "exhausted" health service.

The Ulster Hospital is operating at almost 113% capacity.

The South Eastern Health Trust said it was dealing with its highest number of Covid-positive patients yet.

An increasing number of staff were also self-isolating, which meant patients were waiting longer in emergency departments for admission to wards, said a trust spokeswoman.

Patients arriving by ambulance were also facing delays, she added.

In Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital, nine patients and six staff have been affected by an outbreak of Covid-19.

The Belfast Health Trust has confirmed that the outbreak is on medical ward 7B.

The trust says no further details are available.

On Wednesday, the Department of Health reported 10 more Covid-related deaths across Northern Ireland in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total to 740.

There were 679 confirmed new cases of the virus, with 418 people in hospital.

The number of patients on ventilators fell by two to 42, while there are 50 people in intensive care units across Northern Ireland.

Hospitals across Northern Ireland are operating at 101% capacity, according to the Department of Health data published on Wednesday.

There are 236 patients awaiting admission to hospitals according to the data on the department's Covid-19 dashboard.

Trusts are understood to be escalating plans to deal with the surge.

Current Covid-19 restrictions in Northern Ireland are due to end next Friday (13 November), but Sinn Féin's junior minister Declan Kearney has said the interventions "have not achieved enough" to ensure more restrictions are not needed beyond that date.

A doctor from the Royal College of Physicians has warned of concerns the concentration on emergency Covid care is "creating a massive backlog of chronic disease."

All six of Northern Ireland's health trusts and the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service are under strain due to the extra pressures of the pandemic, and are close to substantially reducing routine surgery as a result.

More staff have been told they will be moved to work in Covid wards and intensive care units, BBC News NI understands.

In their joint appeal, the medical leaders urged people to follow public health advice on social distancing, hand-washing and face masks.

The leader of the Royal College of GPs, Dr Laurence Dorman, issued a plea to the public to support an "exhausted" health service workforce by following the rules.

"We're all extremely busy and extremely worried as our hospitals come close to capacity," he told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme.

"In our practices, just like our hospitals, we are seeing that our staff are being affected by Covid, through either contracting the virus or by being in contact with people with the virus."

Dr Dorman said staff absences were putting pressure on the system, at a time when GPs are also having to cope with the fallout of cancelled operations.

He said GPs were seeing managing patients who have already been waiting a long time for cancer surgery and elective procedures such as hip replacements.

Dr Hamish Courtney, from the Royal College of Physicians, said there are worries the routine care of those with chronic illness "will come to harm" due to the concentration on emergency Covid care.

The diabetes specialist told the BBC's Nolan Show on Wednesday the longer "non-emergency work gets put aside" the more likely conditions will "become very significant issues and irreversible".

"We have been working well below capacity since March but as time goes on, these problems with chronic disease go on," he added.

"People can't wait forever for care. They need blood tests and scans, they need their conditions reviewed and new problems dealt with."

Royal College of Surgeons director, Mark Taylor, confirmed it was increasingly difficult to deliver services like elective surgery and said breathing space was needed to get through the second wave.

On Tuesday, the chair of the British Medical Association (BMA) in Northern Ireland warned against reopening the hospitality industry next week.

Dr Tom Black told the Good Morning Ulster programme that the reopening of pubs and restaurants on 13 November would be "an act of careless vandalism".

On Wednesday, Dr Dorman was asked if he would support calls for another lockdown.

"The Royal College of GPs, as a national organisation, does not have a position on lockdowns per se," he replied.

"Ultimately these are political decisions."

In other coronavirus-related developments in Northern Ireland: