40% COVID patients would stress any system says Western Trust Finance Director Neil Guckian

However, Mr. Guckian said that staffing levels are only one of many factors affecting the health authority’s ability to cope with the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

At the beginning of the pandemic last year there were hundreds of unfilled staff vacancies across the Western Trust.

This is a structural problem that has dogged the Western Trust for many years due to a lack of supply in the labour market and Derry, West Tyrone and Fermanagh’s perceived remoteness for many prospective employees.

Mr. Guckian explained that even if all those hundred of vacancies were filled the health service would still be struggling to cope given the strain of the health emergency at present.

“Not all constraints are staff constraints. In any service industry staffing is a key element of it. If you don’t have the staff you are not able to deliver the service but if we were to double our staff would we double our service?

“No, because you have other constraints: beds, ICU has a very complex structure in term of equipment and making sure everyone is safe and even the layout and the environment. It’s not just as straightforward as saying if all our vacancies were filled we wouldn’t have a problem,” Mr. Guckian told the ‘Journal.’

At present Altnagelvin Hospital is funded for the staffing of sixteen intensive care beds in total and this has now been deployed to meet the ‘extreme surge’ of COVID-19. Once that limit is exceeded, patients from Derry who need critical care will be sent to Belfast.

The ‘Journal’ asked Mr. Guckian if there would be a crisis if the Western Trust had more critical care beds and a full staff roster.

“Forty per cent of beds for patients with respiratory COVID-19 condition would put pressure on any system,” he replied. “Okay, if there was a larger number of total beds would the pressure be exactly the same as it is now? Undoubtedly not if we had much, much more staff,” he said.

Mr. Guckian said the health care staff who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to provide life-saving care during the pandemic so far deserve huge praise.

“By and large I just want to commend our staff who have stepped up to the plate consistently throughout this pandemic.

“We have people who have gone way beyond the pale as leaders in this service where we just take our hats off to them in terms of always stepping up and making sure the patient comes first,” declared the Trust finance chief.

Presently, over a thousand health care staff are unavailable across the Western Trust for a variety of reasons including infection with COVID-19 or self-isolation requirements. Yet it is hoped that the rapid progress in the vaccination of staff that has already been achieved will help ease these pressures in the weeks ahead.