SA, I’m sure you don’t mean to but you’re guilty of sensationalist fearmongering. There is no substance to that news story. Its a masterpiece of innuendo and misdirection, describing a common scenario in our overstretched NHS and suggesting that it is due to covid without offering any evidence.
“Hospital capacity across the region reached 104 percent on Tuesday, according to local authorities.”
Happens every winter in our overstretched NHS, wards are full, patients are parked in beds in corridors.
“A line of more than a dozen ambulances – still with engines on to keep the patients aboard warm – was filmed outside Antrim Area Hospital.”
Been happening for years all over Britain. See this 2 year-old Guardian story headlined “16,900 people in a week kept in NHS ambulances waiting for hospital care”
“Northern Ireland is witnessing a spike in Covid-19 cases after it exited lockdown last week.”
“Cases” means positive tests, not covid patients. The vast majority of tests happen outside of hospitals and do not affect hospital resources. The more tests carried out, the more positives are found. The story offers no connection between “spike in Covid-19 cases” and “exited lockdown” but allows us to assume it.
“Varying degrees of ill patients” have been provided care by doctors “in the back of ambulances,” due to there being no room inside the hospital, she said.”
And these patients are ill from what cause? We are not told but invited to assume covid-19. Nowhere in the story does it tell us the actual number of covid patients in the hospital, despite the implication that the building is full to overflowing with them.
“the heads of Northern Irish healthcare trusts warned that the coronavirus was putting the healthcare system under “unbearable pressures.””
I can state with certainty that in my neck of the woods, that pressure is due to coronavirus policy rather than medical concerns. Two wards in my local hospital are reserved exclusively for covid patients. I know for a fact that they have been barely used.
SA, you put this story forward as evidence for your case. It’s typical of a hundred stories we hear every day which are superficially frightening but contain no substance. Unfortunately the majority of people take these stories at face value and believe they justify ever increasing restrictions on our liberties. That’s what’s truly frightening.