"We are providing care in the car park," Wendy Magowan, medical director of the Northern Health and Social Care Trust, which runs hospitals in the area, told BBC Radio Ulster. Locals requiring urgent care at Antrim Area Hospital and the northerly Causeway Hospital were told earlier on Tuesday not to attend their emergency departments but to instead phone for advice on where to go. The medical director of Northern Ireland's Ambulance Service was quoted by the BBC as saying ambulances were queued to some degree outside all of the region's emergency departments. Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann said he would propose new measures to the devolved government on Thursday. Describing footage outside the hospital as "horrendous", DUP lawmaker Pam Cameron, the deputy chair of Northern Ireland's health committee, urged people to exercise personal responsibility to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Source: bd News24 December 15, 2020 19:52 UTC