Cllr Emmet Doyle: Executive Management of Covid is a Disaster
Aontú Cllr for Derry Emmet Doyle has slammed the Northern Executive and Health Minister Robin Swann for the inexcusable lack of capacity in Antrim Hospital, which has led to vulnerable people being treated in the Hospital Car Park.
Cllr Emmet Doyle: “It is a damning indictment of the cuts to our Health Service, and the total mismanagement of the Coronavirus in the North of Ireland, that the car park of the Antrim Hospital has now been deputised to try deal with those unable to get treatment in the Hospital. One of the reasons we are in and out of lockdown now is in part because of the appalling lack of capacity in our Health Service”.
“The WHO states that national lockdowns should be used to keep the pressure off the health service. We have been in a lockdown for months, with no reduction in cases or deaths, and with a Health Service that does not have the capacity to deal with the threat of Covid-19.”
“Hospital capacity across the north stands at 104%. At one point, 17 Ambulances containing patients awaiting treatment were queued up outside the Emergency department. Doctors were running from Ambulance to Ambulance to try treat patients. 43 people are waiting for an emergency bed. This is simply unacceptable, inexcusable and a paragon of the inadequacy of the Northern Executive’s response to the Covid-19 threat. The people of the North have been failed time and time again throughout this crisis by the Northern Executive, it simply cannot continue.”
