COVID PRESSURE ON HOSPITALS IS ‘UNSUSTAINABLE’
OPS CANCELLED AND STRETCHED STAFF COVERING FOR SICK COLLEAGUES
NOTTINGHAM’S Queen’s Medical Centre and City Hospital are in “uncertain times” as they try to cope with rising Covid admissions and an increase in staff absences.
That was the warning from Dr Keith Girling, medical director at Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH), who said the pressure caused by Covid is “not sustainable.”
As a result of the demand, some operations have been cancelled and staff have been forced to cover colleagues in other areas of the hospitals.
Dr Girling told the Post: “This is a huge pressure on our staff who are having to cover the significant demand on services, but also cover a significant amount of colleagues who are poorly.
“It certainly is not something that is sustainable in the long term. In the short term, if this wave abates in the next few weeks then I think we’ll be fine. But it depends on how Covid behaves and so far it has done its own thing.”
He said the NHS trust currently has in the region of 250 patients with Covid on the wards and added that the number of people being treated for other reasons but who also had Covid made up a “relatively small” percentage of the total.
“[Bed levels] are not as high as we’ve been at in previous peaks yet, but we’ll still see the number increase, we’re not expecting necessarily that we’re at the peak of the inpatient numbers yet.”
According to the most recent figures there were 2,147 staff absent at NUH on January 2 and 1,011 were off due to Covid - more than double the total on December 2 (504).
Dr Girling also revealed there was a “significant pressure” on emergency pathways and added they had “a number of patients that are very delayed from cancer surgery and other urgent surgery that we’re trying to get through hospital at the same time”.
He apologised for the trust’s decision to postpone a “handful” of nonurgent operations this week.
“We’re very sorry about that. It’s not our intention to cancel people but we’ve had to try to respond to the rapidly and ever-changing Covid situation. That has meant a small number of patients have been affected.”
Despite the level of Covid patients in critical care being lower than past waves of the virus, Mr Girling said it was “too soon” to tell if it would be less severe.
“We are trying to maintain as much of our normal non-covid care as we possibly can. It is uncertain times and we’ll try to prepare for all eventualities as we look to the next few weeks.”
At least 24 hospital trusts across England had declared a “critical incident” as of Thursday, but NUH is not included in that figure, said Dr Girling.