Sheffield snow: 'Overwhelmed' Royal Hallamshire Hospital reopens after closing to patients injured on ice
A Sheffield hospital unit that shut after it was overwhelmed from the number of people hurt on black ice is open again today.
Royal Hallamshire Hospital’s Minor Injuries Unit saw “unprecedented numbers” on Wednesday (January 7) due to slips on black ice that blanketed the city overnight.
It reached the point where Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was forced to close after running out of space to take any more patients.
Today (January 8), the Trust confirmed the Minor Injuries Unit is open as normal, and that “demand has dropped significantly.”
On Wednesday, one patient said they had been in a huge queue to get assessed when a medic announced to the “entire waiting room and corridor that they were refusing to see anyone else.”
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 [Note: An NHS spokesperson denied this].
“People [were] are crying in pain and in wheelchairs who have been waiting here for hours and now they are being refused. Awful.”
It comes as Sheffield is bracing for heavy snow brought on by Storm Goretti beginning from 8pm tonight, with an amber weather warning in place.