Casualty department deluged with non-emergency cases

THE ACCIDENT and Emergency Department at the Nicosia General Hospital saw 10,500 people between January 1 and January 28, reports said yesterday suggesting doctors were at their wits end.

The health ministry has repeatedly said in the past that many who visit the emergency department do not need to, and are using it as an outpatients clinic, which puts a huge strain on staff and resources.

However according to reports yesterday, the situation has worsened, with nearly 400 people a day turning up since the start of the year, and as many as 450 on the weekends.

Head of the emergency department in Nicosia, Costas Antoniades was quoted yesterday as saying what he has seen this month has exceeded all previous figures, and the situation had become unrealistic to handle.

‘By Monday – the end of the month – we estimate that we will have seen as many as 12,000 people in January,” said Antoniades. “It cannot go on like this without something being done,” he added.

He said people needed to understand that the accident and emergency department is not where you go when you have flu-like symptoms or other actual diseases. “These are outpatient issues and people must understand that.”

He suggested that perhaps outpatients clinics, which regularly keep government hours and close around 2pm, should remain open. In this way people would not be clogging up the accident and emergency department in the afternoons and evenings, and getting in the way of real emergencies.

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