Inside one of NI’s hospitals hardest hit by ambulance queues
Video report by Correspondent Sharon O’Neill
In the first of a series of special reports, UTV takes you inside one of Northern Ireland’s hardest hit hospitals, where patients have been treated in ambulances queued outside amid Covid pressures.
Some people had to wait 12 hours in the back of an ambulances before even being able to get inside Antrim Area Hospital.
UTV Correspondent Sharon O’Neill was there as the deepening crisis unfolded and witnessed the efforts of staff to cope in extreme conditions, fire-fighting relentlessly from morning until night.
While some say winter pressures are not uncommon, those actually working on the frontline know this is not normal.
“I’ve been in nursing 25 years,” senior nurse Cathy McCoy told UTV.
“This is the worst we have ever seen it. We only thought we had winter pressures – this is winter pressures and a Covid pandemic on top of it.”
Dr Nigel Ruddell, Medical Director of the NI Ambulance Service, told UTV patients being treated in the back of emergency vehicles was not what anyone wanted to see.
He added that “every measure” had been taken by staff to try to ensure patient safety was not compromised and that those with time-critical conditions were taken inside “in a timely fashion”.