Hospital slowly returning to normal workloads

Speaking at yesterday evening’s Civil Contingencies Authority briefing, medical director Dr Peter Rabey said the PEH was slowly returning to normal workloads after coming out of a tough few weeks.

‘We’re getting on with some of the important backlog of work that we’ve got,’ he said.

‘So we’ve been doing some routine elective surgery, for example, this week, which we’re really pleased to be getting stuck into.’

He said Covid had not been the primary cause of the backlog but it had contributed, with some staff shortages due to people having to self-isolate.

‘It’s not been due to Covid overwhelming us,’ he said.

‘It’s been due to having, basically, a ward full of patients who are waiting for social care placements and that’s hurting our ability to deliver the elective work.’

The intensive care ward had been very busy, he said, although this was a typical, seasonal surge in demand rather than being caused by the pandemic.

‘Running an intensive care that is full and overflowing and running a Covid intensive care puts huge pressures on our staff and we’re grateful to them for rising to that challenge,’ he said.

He also thanked the government and the people of the Bailiwick for ‘the level of protection we’ve been offered’.

Since 1 November, there have been 40 Covid patients in the Bailiwick’s two hospitals.

Their average age has been 65 and their average stay has been eight days.

Of those patients, 18 have been treated because of Covid, while the remainder have been admitted for other reasons and have subsequently tested positive for Covid during their stay.

There are three hospital patients in the Bailiwick who are currently diagnosed with Covid-19.

One is being treated for it and is a long-term intensive care patient. The other two – one of whom is in Alderney – are in hospital for other medical reasons.

Dr Rabey concluded: ‘We feel we’re in a good place to go forward.’