Sheffield ice: Overwhelmed Hallamshire Hospital minor injuries unit closes to patients injured on ice
A Sheffield hospital unit has closed after being overwhelmed with the number of people injured on black ice in the city today.
The Minor Injuries Unit at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital has seen “unprecedented numbers” due to falls on black ice that blanketed the city overnight.
This afternoon, an NHS spokesperson said the MIU had reached the point where it no longer had the space to take any more people.
It comes after one patient said they had been in a huge queue to get assessed and booked in.
And medics had announced to the “entire waiting room and corridor that they were refusing to see anyone else,” the patient explained.
Posting on a local Facebook group, she added: “They told everyone to go to the Northern General where the current wait time is 14 hours.
“People are crying in pain and in wheelchairs who have been waiting here for hours and now they are being refused. Awful.”
The NHS spokesperson insisted the waiting time at the Accident and Emergency department at the Northern General Hospital was not 14 hours.
They added: “Clearly we prioritise the most urgent patients first and so the wait for more minor injuries will be longer.”
The Minor Injuries Unit would reopen as normal tomorrow, the spokesperson added.