Emergency Department consultant pleads with public to follow Covid regulations

by PA Media

A consultant from a Belfast Emergency Department has issued a plea for the public to stick with the coronavirus regulations.

Dr John Maxwell was speaking as hospitals in Northern Ireland reached 103% occupancy amid a second surge of Covid-19 cases.

He described staff working tirelessly through “challenging and difficult circumstances”.

“I can’t remember when it was as tough as this before,” he told a media briefing.

“All the staff are working at their absolute max and unquestionably they are tirelessly trying to deliver the best care they possibly can in what are really challenging and difficult circumstances at the minute in the middle of this second surge of the pandemic.

“We are very concerned that this could be one of the worst winters that the NHS in Northern Ireland is going to experience unless we act to change and to do something different to get control of the situation.

“Please support the public health message, you have to absolutely abide by what we are trying to do otherwise you will have an NHS that is overwhelmed.

“We will not get through this unless we work together. So we are saying please, please, please help the NHS out in this particular time, to let us get through it and let your family members get through it.”

Dr Maxwell also warned that the virus can affect younger age groups as badly as the elderly.

“You cannot take this lightly, I do understand that on the front line we do see older people getting it but young people get this too, you would be mad to ignore the risks and absolutely we see people from a younger age group getting into real difficulty as well,” he said.

The latest data from the Department of Health shows the pressure hospitals are under.

Another 9 people have died after contracting Covid19 in Northern Ireland.

It brings the death toll recorded by the Department of Health to 680.

A further 840 positive cases have been confirmed in the past 24 hours. pic.twitter.com/dXWipKbrG4

— Q Radio News (@qnewsdesk) October 28, 2020

At 9am on October 27, there were 2,979 occupied beds, some 76 over the 2,903 capacity.

A further 221 patients were waiting to be admitted.

Of the patients in hospitals, some 352 have tested positive for Covid-19, with 44 in intensive care.

Nine further deaths were also notified on Wednesday, including the youngest so far in Northern Ireland, a patient aged 19 or under.

On the same day, the department recorded 840 new cases of the virus.

However, the BBC has reported there has been a 49% drop in Covid cases in the Derry and Strabane Council area, one of the worst-hit parts of the UK recently.

The drop in positive tests comes three weeks after further restrictions on gatherings were put into place in the area.

Health Minister Robin Swann said in the past, people stood at their doors and clapped for the health service, now he has urged that support is shown by following public health guidance to break the chains of infection.

He described health workers as exhausted and in need of support.

Health Minister Robin Swann MLA

“My plea to the public is to rally round our health and care staff, we can and must thank and praise them but they do need more from us so please do everything you can to stop this virus from spreading further,” he said.

Chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride said the seven-day rolling average of new cases has plateaued and begun to fall.

But he warned that the decline is slow and the trajectory at this stage “remains uncertain”.

“We would ask everyone at this point to redouble their efforts over the next number of weeks,” he said.

“It is crucially important that we get the reproductive rate of the virus below one, as far below one as we possibly can and keep it there for as long as we possibly can.”

Dr McBride also commented that any sense that Northern Ireland will return to normality at the end of the current four-week circuit-break of additional restrictions is “misplaced”.

“We are now in the middle of winter, this virus will continue to plague us throughout the next number of months, until such times as we have a vaccine, and it is crucially important that we learn to live with it and we will need to interact very, very differently as a society until such times as that is the case,” he said.

The Stormont Executive is set to meet on Thursday to review the impact of the restrictions and is set to discuss the reopening of schools on Monday.