BBCThe pressures currently facing Northern Ireland’s health service are “disastrous and diabolical”, First Minister Michelle O’Neill has said.
She was speaking as MPs, who officially returned to the Assembly after the winter break, are being called upon to do more to ease the current situation.
During a motion on ambulance waiting times, Health Minister Mike Nesbitt told Stormont MPs he recognized there was “an urgent need for reform”.
It was a Tough fortnight for emergency services in Northern Ireland.
“The public wants to know what we are going to do”
Speaking to reporters, O’Neill said it was “disastrous”, not only for the patients waiting on a bed, but also for the healthcare staff.
“We have work to do. One minister alone will not solve this problem, it needs a collective effort,” she said.
“The public want to know what we are going to do about it, we know what the challenges are and the issue of referrals to social services is not there – that is what I want the Executive to talk about.”
Last week, Health Minister Mike Nesbitt announced that flu vaccines, currently available free to those aged 65 and over, would be extended to the 50 to 64 age group.
Nesbitt also said he was considering raising salaries for social workers in an effort to “stabilize” the health care system.
During last week’s crisis, the health ministry said long-term solutions to the problems required sustained investment and reforms.
PA MediaSpeaking at Stormont, Nesbitt said his aim was “to develop a better, fairer, more efficient and better integrated urgent care service”.
He said current pressures come from an insufficient budget.
“If you are told that the budget is completely insufficient to meet the needs of the HSC service, and you vote in favor, despite the warning, and then complain about the consequences of your decision, are you comfortable with this position?
He announced a number of measures that his ministry would take to improve the quality of our health system.
He added: “It is essential that we have sufficient capacity and that is why, in the coming months, I will commission an evidence-based emergency care capacity assessment. »
This included measures to increase the capacity of ambulance services.
Alliance MP Stewart Dickson told the assembly that in England and Wales, people who need to move from hospital to supported care in the community have to “fight with the local authorities”.
He continued: “Here we have a supposedly unified health and welfare system. Yet this united unity has failed us.
DUP MP Diane Dodds, who sits on the health committee, said today’s problems represent failures that have been made repeatedly in the past.
Meanwhile, SDLP MP Colm McGrath, who also sits on the committee, said: “People are afraid that every time they get to the point where they need an ambulance and they pick up the phone … so that there is not immediately someone to the other. end who is able to come and help them. »
How long are emergency room wait times?
A cold snap coupled with the winter flu wave were factors explaining the delays of the last two weeks.
At one point, hundreds of people were waiting for more than 12 hours in Northern Ireland’s nine emergency departments, with more than 1,000 people waiting for treatment in total.
The lack of care in the community has led to difficulty for hospitals in discharging patients, leading to longer wait times to be admitted.
Two elderly patients are believed to have been in the emergency department at the Royal Victoria Hospital for more than five days.
A hospital nurse said staff were caring for “the most vulnerable elderly patients in an intolerable environment”.
The vice-president of Northern Ireland’s Royal College of Emergency Medicine said problems in emergency departments were “the worst we have ever seen”.
Dr. Michael Perry added that a 12-hour wait for a bed was probably a “conservative estimate.”
On Sunday, a consultant surgeon said emergency services in Northern Ireland had been amid ‘perfect storm’ due to continued ‘immense pressure’ and the flu.
Professor Mark Taylor, of the Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Confederation (NICON), said the lack of flow into hospitals was having serious consequences.
Professor Taylor also said that as of 10:00 GMT on Saturday, 532 people were medically fit for discharge, in NI hospitals, but could not be released into the community.
