Hospitals in west Wales are asking people to pick up sick loved ones if they are able to go home because they are “extremely busy”. Hywel Dda University Health Board made the urgent call on Tuesday due to “continuing high demand” and an influx of “many sick patients".
The health board, which manages healthcare in in Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, and Ceredigion, has been under increased pressure for some time and has appealed for the public’s help twice in the space of a few days. You can keep up to date with the latest Carmarthenshire news by signing up to the local newsletter here.
Just before Christmas health chiefs asked members of the public to stay away from the two major A&E departments in south west Wales – located at Carmarthen’s Glangwili Hospital and Withybush Hospital in Haverfordwest – unless their condition was significantly serious or life-threatening. Now health bosses have reiterated that appeal and expanded on it by asking people to collect loved ones from hospitals if they are able to return home. A spokesman for the health board said: “Our hospitals continue to be extremely busy with many sick patients and continuing high demand for emergency and urgent care. This means patients are waiting longer than we would want them to.
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"We are working hard with colleagues, particularly from the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust and local authorities, and we are seeing patients with the highest clinical needs first. If you have a friend, family member, or loved one who is medically well enough to be discharged from hospital please help us by coming to pick them up promptly. This will allow us to admit people waiting for a hospital bed. Only attend an emergency department if you have a life-threatening illness or serious injury such as severe breathing difficulties, severe pain or bleeding, chest pain or a suspected stroke, or serious trauma injuries.” The health board added that it operates minor injury and walk-in services at Cardigan Integrated Care Centre and Tenby Hospital, as well as at their main hospital sites, and asked people to visit the NHS 111 Wales website if they are feeling unwell.
The location of accident and emergency care in west Wales is due to be shaken up in the coming years with a new hospital being built between the existing Glangwili and Withybush sites. A number of sites to the west of Carmarthen were initially put forward for consideration before a final three were decided upon following a health board meeting in August. All three are within a five-mile radius between the towns of St Clears and Whitland in western Carmarthenshire. The health board said the shake-up would “improve and increase the specialist care services that can be provided and tackle some long standing challenges, including old hospitals, problems in maintaining medical rotas over several hospitals, and staff recruitment”.
Elsewhere in Wales Swansea Bay University Health Board has also said its A&E department is under "extreme pressure" on Wednesday and stressed that "only those with the most serious and life-threatening illnesses and injuries should attend".
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