A total of 39 in-patient procedures have been postponed across the Western Health and Social Care Trust in the last two weeks as a result of increased pressure on hospitals in the area.
While other Trust areas have seen some red flag surgeries cancelled as a result of increased hospital admissions due to Covid 19 in recent days, Western Trust officials have said no procedures will be cancelled at its hospitals as a result at this time.
At a media briefing held by the Trust on Thursday, board members said while hospital admissions due to Covid have increased in July, they believe this has now plateaued.
Assistant director for emergency medicine Mark Gillespie said: “We believe at this present time the Covid admission rate has plateaued. At this present minute we will be starting to think about stepping up our elective surgeries as we move forward.
“Very much from our perspective it’s delay and postponement. We’ve worked hard on the patients we have. We’re not in a position at this point that we we will be cancelling red flag surgery and we have protected 10 beds which we have ring fenced so we can continually admit those patients and manage them in as timely a way as possible given the current constraints.”
Hospital admissions due to Covid 19 peaked at 40 in Altnagelvin on 25 July, while they peaked at 17 in the South West Acute Hospital on 27 July.
Figures released by the Trust showed that Emergency Department admissions in the region had increased 22%, with 10% more people attending emergency in Altnagelvin.
Western Trust medical director Dr Catherine McDonnell said the latest surge in Covid figures was different to previous waves.
Dr McDonnell explained: “The first surge we focused completely on Covid and everything else was downturned and we also had a response from the public at that stage where people stayed away from hospitals because of their anxieties and fears.
“When we moved into second and third surge we moved very much into unscheduled care as it began to increase.
“There’s a slight change in profile in terms of the patients coming through to our Covid wards, because there’s a pattern of younger admissions and an increase in admissions from ED.”
When it comes to vaccinations, the Trust confirmed that its three vaccination centres at the Foyle Arena, Omagh Leisure Centre and the Lakeland Forum would be stood down in favour of the increased used of mobile vaccination clinics.
Teresa Molloy, director of performance and service improvement at the Trust, said: “What we are finding was that the numbers of first doses attending the mass vaccination centres was really tailing off, so it really wasn’t achieving a very significant impact on population vaccination, so the mobile programme is really the programme we’re finding now has traction particularly with the younger age groups."
“So it’s really more about switching to a medium that will get results with younger folk rather than something as a backward step.”
“We don’t see it as a backward step but something that has run its course, and we will then have a further three months to September to finish all of our second doses, but our focus will shift now to the mobile clinics.”
“Well over 50% of people who attend those mobile clinics are in those younger age groups. It’s really the mechanism now to get at those groups.”
