THE HEALTH Minister has stepped in a bid to have recently postponed cancer surgeries rescheduled urgently, stating he was “deeply disturbed” by what was happening.
As reported by the Herald in recent weeks, fears have been growing over the ‘collateral’ consequences of the Covid pandemic, with local doctors and councillors here in Fermanagh raising serious concerns that treatments for life-threatening conditions were being sidelined so the health service could cope with virus patients.
Those fears appear to have been realised over the past week with hundreds of cancer procedures cancelled across the North, including over 100 at the Belfast Trust and over a dozen at the Western Trust, due to a surge in Covid patients.
Now Health Minster Robin Swann has intervened, urging the trusts to rescheduled the surgeries “urgently.”
“This situation is extremely distressing for patients and families and I sincerely apologise for the distress that has been caused,” said Minister Swann. “This is also a dreadful position for our healthcare staff and hospital managers to be in.
“The more critically ill Covid patients there are, the less staffing capacity we have in the system for non-Covid services. This is the dire reality that we find ourselves in.”
Stating the reducing the Covid infection rate was now more important than ever, Minister Swann said the problem was the health service had been “running on empty” for the past decade, which had contributed to the current situation.
“It is no secret that we have long standing staffing pressures in our health service and they unfortunately cannot be fixed in the short term,” he said, adding efforts were underway to recruit more staff.
Speaking about the situation recently, Cllr Sheamus Greene said we couldn’t let people die from lack of treatment for other illnesses because of Covid. He said other serious condition “should have the same priority as Covid.”
“There’s no point in us doing the good work in stopping the virus spreading and locking down, if it results in people who need treatment for other things not getting that treatment, and then dying or becoming seriously ill as a result.”
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