Flu crisis: Now hospital visiting hours are axed
Families banned from wards, 100s of operations cancelled
HUNDREDS of operations are being cancelled – and even visiting hours postponed – as Scotland’s NHS struggles to cope with the flu outbreak.
With thousands of patients seeking medical help for winter illnesses, health boards have been forced to postpone non-emergency surgery – meaning that procedures such as hip, knee and hernia operations have been delayed.
Hospital bosses are to hold crisis meetings tomorrow to determine whether yet more operations will need to be rescheduled.
meanwhile, health boards – facing staffing pressures as doctors and nurses themselves fall ill – have restricted or even cancelled visiting hours in a desperate bid to limit the spread of infection.
Patients have been moved to different facilities because of lack of space, and additional wards and ‘surge’ beds have been made available to deal with overcrowding. Summing up the health boards’ problems, NHS Highland associate medical director Dr Ken mcDonald said: ‘We’ve seen an increase in the number of flu patients coming in to hospital, which is placing us under significant pressure.’
At the end of last week, The Scottish mail on Sunday contacted all of the country’s 14 local health boards to assess the impact of the flu outbreak, which affected more than 5,000 people in just the first week of January – a number four times higher than for the same period last year.
In total, nine boards said they had been forced to reschedule elective operations last week. In the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area, 149 planned surgeries were rescheduled, while NHS Lothian postponed 130 elective procedures in order to make room for patients with more urgent needs.
Nearly 100 scheduled surgeries were postponed across Ayrshire and Arran, Lanarkshire, Forth Valley, the Western Isles, Dumfries and Galloway and the Highlands due to winter pressures.
Dr mcDonald added: ‘These are not decisions that we take lightly but we need to manage these pressures to ensure we are able to provide care safely.’
‘We apologise for the postponement of these procedures.’
Five patients had to be moved to Ross memorial Hospital in Dingwall, Ross-shire, due to overcrowding at Raigmore in Inverness, forcing the Ross minor Injuries Unit to close on monday to accommodate the transfers.
Patients in several hospitals are being refused visits from loved ones while the NHS contains the spread of the flu.
At Raigmore, visiting hours are completely suspended after staff found evidence of the flu being passed from visitor to patient, and NHS Highland is asking that children under the age of 16 refrain from visiting anyone in hospital.