A UNION official at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) has said health trust decisions to cancel surgeries due to the Covid-19 pandemic have "exposed the vulnerability" of an "underfunded" health service.
Unison's RVH and Muckamore Branch Secretary, Conor McCarthy, said the pandemic has "magnified" problems within the health service that have long existed.
On Friday, Belfast Trust said it was cancelling 96 "non-time critical elective orthopaedic" surgeries due to the rise in Covid-19 hospital admissions.
On Sunday evening, the Trust issued an urgent appeal for off-duty staff to return to work to help deal with "extreme pressure" on the health service.
Commenting on the developments, Mr McCarthy said: "The bottom line is that Covid has exposed the vulnerability of a health service that has been underfunded for far too long.
"There is no workforce planning strategy in place that the department was to put in place as promised.
"There is still a mass casualisation of the workforce and it is still extremely difficult to get a job in the Belfast Trust because it is incredibly bureaucratic and unnecessarily laborious.
"These are problems that have been magnified through Covid, but they are not here because of Covid."
Mr McCarthy said the impact of the pandemic has rendered hospitals "completely unrecognisable", describing the cancellation of surgeries and the denial of healthcare as "disheartening".
"The amount of people in our society who are living with illness, sickness, disability, pain, all not getting access to healthcare must not be ignored," he added.
Mr McCarthy said attempts to have off-duty staff return to work raises "health and safety" concerns.
"How many burnouts can staff go through?" he asked.
"Staff are completely burnt out. We will not be going about encouraging people to cancel their leave. In fact, to the contrary, we'll be telling people who are on leave to take their leave, get the rest that they need.
"They're (the Trust) ignoring the health and safety element of people who are completely fatigued. If those people make professional mistakes, are they going to be held accountable? Are they going to be held accountable for patient endangerment when they've been working 12-hour shifts and cancelling their annual leave? It's a health and safety issue why staff should take their annual leave, take the rest so that they can come back with some sort of revitalisation."
Belfast Trust Medical Director, Mr Chris Hagan, apologised to those impacted by the decision to cancel surgeries.
"We would like to apologise to those patients and families affected by this decision, it is not one we wanted to make and we appreciate the anxiety it will cause. However, this is the only way we can ensure safe staffing levels for patients who are most acutely ill, whilst allowing regional complex surgery to continue at Belfast City Hospital.”
“In addition we have identified that 60% of patients admitted with Covid-19 symptoms are not vaccinated. It is therefore vital that everyone eligible receives the vaccination as soon as possible by using the booking system or calling into one of the many drop-in centres this weekend.”
"The regional complex surgery currently carried out at Belfast City Hospital remains unaffected and we continue to protect that site as a 'green' (Covid-free) pathway."
