A health trust in Northern Ireland has issued an urgent staff appeal for off-duty staff members to work this week due to "extreme pressure."
The Northern Health and Social Care Trust issued the appeal on Tuesday evening, due to pressures at Antrim Area Hospital and Causeway Hospital.
They are appealing for nurses and nursing assistants to cover shifts tonight, January 3, or tomorrow, January 4.
Read more: 'It's unrelenting': Alliance MLA working as nurse on healthcare crisis in NI
In a post on social media, the Northern Trust said: "Urgent Staff Appeal for Registered Nurses and Nursing Assistants to support Antrim or Causeway Hospital tonight (03/01/2023) and tomorrow (04/01/2022).
"If you are available to cover any shifts tonight or tomorrow please contact Duty Sister for Antrim Hospital through switch board 028 9442 4000 or Patient Flow Co-ordinator for Causeway Hospital CAU 028 7032 7032."
In the past seven days, the Northern Trust alone has issued four appeals on social media, urging the public that emergency departments at Antrim Area Hospital and Causeway Hospital are under "extreme pressure."
It comes after health trusts throughout Northern Ireland have been issuing urgent appeals for off-duty staff to cover shifts amid increasing pressures.
Speaking after working a shift in an emergency department in Northern Ireland on bank holiday Monday, January 2, Danny Donnelly - who is an Alliance MLA working as a nurse occassionally to keep his registration active - likened the current situation to a "warzone."
"I've been doing shifts in A&E for about 15 years, and I've never seen it like that," he told Belfast Live.
"There's sick patients everywhere, there's very little room to even get about in the department. Every cubicle is full with patients, every trolley has a patient on it, every bed has a patient on it.
"The waiting room is full, there's ambulances stacked up outside. Wherever there's space, there's rows of patients on chairs with drips attached. It is quite unbelievable and very tough on the staff trying to provide care to their patients in that environment."
Mr Donnelly added that staff throughout the health service here are under "intense pressure" during such an "unprecedented crisis."
He said: "The trusts are doing all they can to try and cope with this, but this is a crisis. In my view, this is enough of a crisis to get the Assembly back together to address this. People are suffering unnecessarily."
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