THE WESTERN Trust is pleading with everyone in the community to stay at home and do all they can to stem the spread of the virus, with SWAH launching its “extreme surge planning” as it struggles to cope with the growing number of Covid patients.
Trust management has warned the number of Covid positive patients at the hospital is growing rapidly and is projected to double in the coming week.
Elective surgeries and procedures have already been postponed and the Trust has said ‘red flag’ and cancer surgeries may have to be rescheduled if the situation continues to worsen in the coming days.
The projections came after SWAH was forced to take the unprecedented step of calling in off duty staff at the weekend when the Southern.
Trust succumbed to pressure and asked to divert patients to Enniskillen.
Trust director Neil McGuckian said the hospital was under “intense pressure” right now.
“SWAH is already operating at 118 percent of its capacity, the Covid patients have increased almost 50 percent over the last number of days,” he said. “Our projections are indicating that from next week numbers could double from one in four patients to double that amount.
“To have 40 percent of all adult beds used for Covid is extremely challenging.”
He added, for context: “In our first surge we had 140 admissions in our hospitals in the west, and from then on we’ve had 706. Clearly the Western Trust has been under intense pressure during this pandemic.”
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