Doctors at several hospitals in Northern Ireland were forced to treat patients in car parks on Tuesday as the nation’s health service was forced to the brink.
Across Northern Ireland, hospital capacity stood at 104%.
At one point outside the hospital in the Antrim area, 17 ambulances containing patients lined up outside the emergency department.
Wendy Magowan, director of operations for the Northern Trust, a health and social care provider serving 470,000 people in the region, said a patient waited 10 hours in an ambulance in Antrim County overnight.
43 people were waiting for an emergency bed at Antrim Area Hospital and 21 at Causeway Hospital on Tuesday morning, Magowan told PA Media UK.
He added that 100 of the 400 beds at Antrim Hospital were already occupied by Covid-19 patients.
“The pressure has been increasing, we are seeing our Covid figures increase here at Antrim Hospital,” he told PA.
Every day we do not see this second rise begin to decline.
The troubling scenes took place when Prime Minister Arlene Foster engaged with other UK political leaders on the British government’s plan to relax coronavirus restrictions over the Christmas holidays.
No decision has been made to reverse the plans, but the government faces strong criticism for doing so by health experts who have warned that hospitalizations on New Year’s Eve could coincide with those of the pandemic in in April, unless stricter measures are taken.
On 11 December, Northern Ireland emerged from a closure of ‘circuit breakers’, where schools were kept open, but some companies in the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors were forced to close.
The blockade did not reduce infection rates.
Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann said on Thursday he would propose a series of new restrictions to executive colleagues.
In the last 24 hours, 486 new cases of the virus were reported in Northern Ireland, and six more people were announced on Tuesday.
1,135 people have died since Covid-19 in Northern Ireland so far.