Out-of-hours GPs facing most difficult Christmas ever, says BMA

It has been the most difficult Christmas on record for out-of-hours GP services, a senior doctor has said.

Northern Ireland Chair of the British Medical Association (BMA), Dr Tom Black, said record numbers of patients were attending GP services.

The Southern Trust said its out-of-hours department was prioritising urgent calls.

On Christmas Eve, Western Urgent Care received 640 calls - up from 158 calls last year, Dr Black said.

Speaking to the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme, he said the health service had been overwhelmed.

"It has been for the last two months," he said. "Since September we've really struggled to keep things going."

Dr Black said emergency departments have also been very busy.

Some 333 patients were waiting for more than 12 hours.

Dr Black said Wednesday was set to be "the busiest day we've ever seen" and warned people to only visit EDs in an emergency.

"It's a shared resource," he said.

"We all pay for this through our taxation and we all understand you can't be pushing to the front of the queue because you've got a sore toe - we have to look after the vulnerable people in our society, particularly today."

Dr Black said a number of different factors were to blame for the pressures being felt across the health service, including strep A, Covid-19, flu and respiratory viruses and vomiting bugs.

"We've seen a confluence of an extraordinary number of infections peaking at this time, all different things - we haven't seen anything like it before.

"We knew coming out of Covid it would be more difficult but we didn't expect this to be so severe."

He said the situation has meant healthcare staff have been forced to prioritise patients.

"I think that's what we'll have to do for the next few months," he added.

"We don't have enough resources to see everybody with a sore throat or a cough - we're trying to make sure the most vulnerable and the sickest are being seen."

The pressures facing Northern Ireland's health service have been well documented.

Staff said they were treating the acutely unwell in areas which were "overcrowded and undignified" and a senior consultant likened the scenes to "battlefield" medicine.

Meanwhile, a consultant at Londonderry's Altnagelvin hospital said the emergency department there has been "utterly overrun with patients".

"I have just done a round of the A&E here and there are 50 patients and 34 cubicles," Dr Paul Bayliss told BBC Radio Foyle on Wednesday morning.

"More often than not when I pick up their notes it says 'has been unwell for five or six days'. There are more people here than there is physical space to accommodate them," he said.

He urged people with non-urgent conditions to stay away.

"If it isn't an emergency then this isn't the place to come at this time because we are talking 12 hours (wait).

"I am sorry the service is so poor but we are really flat to the mat with emergencies only and doing our very best for the people who are really, really sick," he said.