Covid-19 patients 'rocketing' at Wolverhampton New Cross Hospital

Doctors at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton will be redeployed to support increased demand for patients in intensive care

Intensive care capacity at a hospital is to be increased by 200% in the face of a "rocketing" number of Covid-19 patients.

New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton is currently treating almost 300 patients with the virus.

Doctors are being redeployed to the intensive care unit (ICU) and some operations have been cancelled.

The hospital said the move was to cope with the "volume of very, very sick people coming into hospital".

Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust Dr Brian McKaig said the effect of that was not only being felt in ICU, but would have "a huge impact on other services".

He said the trust was "having to make really difficult decisions about cancelling operations".

There have been a number of reports over recent days of more than a dozen ambulances waiting for hours outside New Cross Hospital, as well as others in the region, to unload patients.

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One paramedic posted on Facebook on Tuesday that he had been waiting four hours to hand over a patient - one of 15 ambulance crews stacked outside A&E.

New Cross's decision comes after University Hospitals Birmingham announced similar measures on Tuesday, redeploying 200 doctors to its ICUs.

The city has seen its number of coronavirus cases rise to 2,800 in the week up to 8 January, up from 813 just three weeks earlier.

In the seven days up to 3 January there were 211 new hospital admissions with Covid-19, almost double the number the week before.

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Wolverhampton's director of public health, John Denley, said one in 40 people in the city were estimated to have Covid-19.

Council Leader Ian Brookfield said the city was facing "a very serious situation indeed".

He urged people to stay at home, adding that more than 2,400 from Wolverhampton tested positive for the virus last week.

"That's a staggering number which is putting immense pressure on local health services and, tragically, claiming lives," he said.

New Cross Hospital said 473 people have died on its wards with coronavirus since March.

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