Capacity concerns with 2,000 in hospital
NEARLY 2,000 Scots are now being treated for coronavirus in hospitals amid growing fears over capacity.
Nicola Sturgeon yesterday revealed a further 41 people had been admitted to wards across Scotland suffering with the lifethreatening illness.
There are now 1,959 patients in hospitals, with 146 of those in intensive care units – a record since the pandemic began.
Despite ‘positive’ signs in the slight reduction of the number of daily cases, with 1,429 new positive tests to lunchtime yesterday, admissions to hospital continue to rise.
The First Minister previously raised serious concerns about the pressure facing the NHS – with some health boards nearing their capacity. Speaking at her daily coronavirus briefing on the latest figures, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘As you can see, that is now significantly above the peak of hospital occupancy that we saw in the first wave back in April last year, when the numbers of people in hospital at any one time peaked at around 1,500.
‘So that demonstrates the pressure that hospital services continue to be under.’
Yesterday, it was revealed NHS Dumfries and Galloway bosses had opened two wards in the former Cresswell Maternity Hospital in Dumfries to help ease the pressure.
Health officials say that the increase in the number of people in the area requiring urgent treatment for Covid-19 has prompted the implementation of some contingency arrangements.
NHS Dumfries and Galloway chief operating officer Julie White said: ‘From the earliest stages of this pandemic, planning has been in place which provides flexibility in our ability to respond to the coronavirus outbreak.
‘Although our services have been under pressure since the outbreak began, particularly during the first wave, the unprecedented number of local cases in recent weeks, driven by the new Covid-19 variant, has resulted in a record number of hospital admissions due to the coronavirus – and this has continued to grow.
‘The number of newly identified Covid-19 cases in the region has seen a slight decrease in recent days, but the situation remains precarious.
‘The delay in time between someone developing Covid and potentially becoming extremely unwell means that many of the people currently being admitted to hospital became infected before local cases had reached their record high.
‘In order to ensure that we are able to continue to provide urgent care to those most in need and to ensure that we have the resources where we need them, we have now enacted some of our contingency planning.’
On Friday, National Clinical Director Jason Leitch urged people to continue using health services despite the high numbers of those receiving treatment for Covid.