A Northern Ireland doctor has warned that there will be “total, total chaos” if restrictions are lifted.
“It feels like complete and utter madness” to open up, Dr Nicola Herron told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show. The health service was managing the numbers of patients so far, but if restrictions were lifted, numbers would increase and put pressure on the system.
Research needed to be done on where cases were coming from, where was the initial point of contact, she said. “We can’t make informed decisions about which businesses could open, those people could take the virus home and spread it."
Clusters
“Where have all these clusters started? There doesn’t appear to be that information.”
Dr Herron also said that a time scale should not be put on when restrictions could be lifted. “There’s no point putting a date on it until we know the numbers of people in the community with the virus drop to a safe level. We need to look at the figures.
“Why aren’t we using our brains? The number of weeks doesn’t matter, the numbers (with Covid) matter.”
This was not an economic decision, it was a moral decision, she said.
With regard to hospitals in Northern Ireland, she said that at Altnegevin Hospital the ICU wards were “saturated” and that Covid patients were being treated in respiratory wards by nurses who had been “trained up".
The issue was not bed space, it was having enough staff to treat patients. “We’re managing the number of patients so far.” However, she warned that if restrictions were lifted, numbers could go up which would mean “total, total chaos".
