Increased number of beds to be made available at Craigavon Hospital

Extra beds will be made available at Craigavon Hospital during the winter period.

The Chief Executive of the Southern Health Trust says additional pharmacy staff will also be provided.

Assembly Member for the area, Rosemary Barton has welcomed the news:

Mrs Barton says the beds boost aims to enable more patients to be discharged before 1pm and thus freeing up space in the wards.

“An increased number of beds has been promised, with more flexibility to open beds elsewhere. This hopefully will benefit patients as they will have shorter waiting times on trolleys and will be transferred to wards in a quicker time frame. Meanwhile, this should also ease the resource constraints on staff which will ultimately help them through the winter demand," says Mrs Barton.

The MLA says she is still dismayed however to note that there is a deficit in nursing staff in both medical and surgical wards.

"I have put a question to the Minister of Health to establish what her Department is doing to address this issue," she adds.

Just last week, the Southern Health Trust cancelled all non-emergency inpatient surgeries at Craigavon Area Hospital due to the nororvirus.