Daisy Hill Hospital staffing crisis: Southern Health Trust says it will only have one full-time medical consultant at hosptial from late July

It has been reported that the trust is proposing to more than halve the number of ward beds at the hospital from 107 to 40 as an interim measure - in order to maintain patient safety.

UTV also reported concerns that by the end of July the hospital will be left with just one medical consultant - and potentially no junior doctors by August.

In a statement to the News Letter a spokesperson for the Southern Trust appeared to confirm the reports.

“From late July we will have only one substantive medical consultant working at Daisy Hill Hospital and this could potentially impact on the number of student doctors we are allocated in August," she said.

(Medical consultants tend to treat conditions using drugs rather than surgery).

“Our initial focus aims to immediately stabilise staffing for the summer months in anticipation of a more permanent solution,” she added.

“We have worked with medical staff to develop a number of possible proposals to prevent and reduce inpatient medical admissions by developing more same day emergency care and enhancing community services.

“This will mean a reduction in the number of inpatient beds at the hospital in order to safely look after the number of patients who need medical care with our available workforce. It will also require significant development in community health and social care services, particularly in the Newry and Mourne area, to better ensure that people who don’t need to be in hospital can be appropriately supported at home."

The trust continues to develop proposed models as they receive feedback from local and regional staff, she added.

Other consultants will remain outside the medical field, such as in paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, Emergency Medicine, Surgical and nephrology (renal).

Commenting on the ongoing issues, BMA NI Council chair Dr Tom Black, said: “Unfortunately the situation is very difficult at Daisy Hill and as BMA said previously there is now an impact on acute medical services. I have no doubt that the Trust are doing all they can to manage the situation but if you can’t staff the wards then what else can they do?

“The need to change our health service is not in doubt, but to do that someone needs to take what are probably unpopular decisions, and if that needs to happen then they need to bring local communities along with them so they can see how a changed service is an improved service. We need our local institutions up and running as soon as possible to make this happen."

He added that not paying staff properly compared to GB and the south means “will not be able to recruit or retain staff”.

Armagh borough TUV councillor Keith Ratcliffe slammed the decision to slash the number of beds.

“The decision of the Southern Trust to slash the number of beds at Daisy Hill from 107 to just 40 is reprehensible,” he said.

"It is no wonder that the hospital has difficulty with recruitment and retention of staff when these sort of actions are taken."