Medical staff at Derry’s Emergency Department have urged people to consider alternative treatments if appropriate due to huge pressures this week with dozens of patients waiting up to three days to be admitted to a ward.
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00:00Good afternoon, my name is Christopher Sharkey, I'm one of the emergency medicine consultants
00:04working in Alton McGelvan ED. I am speaking to you today to appeal for your help in relation
00:10to what is going on in our department. Currently at half twelve on Monday the 16th of December
00:15we have 121 patients in the department. There's 63 patients waiting for admission onto one
00:21of the medical or surgical or other wards. Some of them unfortunately are waiting three
00:25days for a bed. So I'm appealing to you for your help. There are things you can do to
00:31help us out. First of all, if you do need to come to hospital we advise you to seek
00:37our help and we will treat you accordingly. There are alternative pathways that you may
00:41want to consider. For example, you could use your GP service, your local pharmacy, but
00:46again I want to emphasise to yourself that if you are well we are more than happy to
00:50see you, but we will prioritise the most unwell patients first which may result in longer
00:55waits for you. Thank you.
00:58Hi, I'm Neil Black, I'm one of the clinical medical leads in the hospital. While a lot
01:03of people who are in the emergency department for admission really need to be in admission
01:07and need inpatient care, some of those that are still here just need to go home and need
01:11support. So if you do have a relative who is in the hospital we may ask you to take
01:15them home as early as you can. Unfortunately that means that you might need to take some
01:19time off work or other things, but even that one person getting home makes a big difference
01:24to them, makes a big difference to the department. So if you do have a relative and you're asked
01:30to see if you can take them home, please offer significant amount of discretion with that
01:34and come as early as you can to help them get home.