OUR HOSPITAL HAS LONGEST A&E WAITS

The statistics released by the Department of Health last Thursday show that the number of people forced to wait for more than 12 hours in hospital A&E departments in Northern Ireland has risen by almost a third in the past year.

The longest waits have been at Antrim Area Hospital where 1,451 people spent more than 12 hours waiting between January and March, 2011.

The figure dwarfed that of Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital and Mater hospitals, the two next highest with delays of 580 and 452 patients, respectively.

Last year, accident and emergency services were withdrawn from the Mid-Ulster Hospital and Whiteabbey Hospital and replaced with a minor injuries unit led by nurses.

They were redirected to Antrim Area Hospital, causing critics to argue that its A&E unit was already overstretched.

Antrim’s issues also mean the Northern Trust leads the league table with the longest waiting times, seeing 1,588 patients waiting for more than 12 hours.

The figures also show that January and February were the worst months to visit a casualty department, with marked improvements in March in all but the Royal Victoria Hospital.

Between January and March province-wide more than 3,424 sick and injured people spent at least 12 hours waiting in casualty departments for emergency care.

In 2010, that figure stood at 2,604.

They showed too that despite a marked improvement in March, none of the five health trusts achieved their four-hour target of treating people at A&E departments.

The figures for those discharged or admitted within four hours of their arrival in an emergency care department vary from 89.7% in the Southern Trust to 74.2 per cent in the Belfast Trust.