Hospitals in Northern Ireland are struggling to cope with winter pressures as hundreds of patients face lengthy waits for beds.
A Belfast man who attended a Northern Ireland hospital's accident and emergency department over the weekend says it was 'bedlam'. It comes as it emerged that over 400 people who attended emergency departments on Sunday night were told they would have a wait of at least 12 hours for a hospital bed. At one stage almost 800 people were waiting in Northern Ireland's nine emergency departments , with more than half of these patients needing a bed.
The issue of the current winter pressures on hospitals and Emergency Departments (EDs) is due to be discussed at an emergency meeting of Stormont's Health Committee on Tuesday when Health Minister Mike Nesbitt will update members on hospital ED waiting times. With the current cold snap and flu cases still yet to peak, the heath service here is bracing itself for a very challenging week ahead. One person who has experienced the current pressures first hand is Nathan Sheils, who says he spent over 26 hours in A&E at Royal Victoria Hospital on Friday morning and into Saturday afternoon. Nathan, 49, told Belfast Live on Monday: 'I was attending A&E for what turned out to be a relatively minor matter. I was advised to attend the Emergency Department at the Royal Victoria Hospital to get checked out after attending the City Hospital for some tests and was clearly under the weather. I arrived on Friday morning at 11am and was kept in A&E until 1:30 on Saturday afternoon. 'When I arrived on Friday morning, there weren't many free seats with about 80 people waiting to be seen but at that stage it wasn't as bad as it was to become. It was bedlam. Throughout the day, I was brought in for different things and then sent back out to the waiting area several time
Hospitals Winter Pressures Emergency Departments Wait Times Flu
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