The North's Health and Social Care Board has warned of "major challenges" in the provision of healthcare in Northern Ireland on Wednesday due to a strike by nurses and paramedics.
About 9,000 nurses in Northern Ireland will take part in a 12-hour stoppage from 8am. Ambulance paramedics will be on strike for 24 hours from midnight.
Nurses and other healthcare staff represented by four trade unions have been taking part in industrial action over pay and staffing levels since last month.
Representatives from the North's political parties met with the head of the Northern Ireland civil service and the permanent secretary to the Department of Health (DoH) on Tuesday in a last-ditch attempt to avert the strike.
They also sent a letter to the Northern Secretary, Julian Smith, which they said provided "cover" for him to intervene and meet demands over pay in the absence of a devolved government and a Northern Ireland health minister.
Additional funding
Mr Smith previously ruled out seeking additional funding from the UK government and said health was primarily a devolved matter which could be solved “by the parties coming together and moving things forward”.
Health is a key issue in the talks aimed at restoring the North’s Assembly, which resumed on Monday.
The director of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in Northern Ireland, Pat Cullen, said the "last thing that any nurse wants is to have to take industrial action", but nurses now felt they had "no choice".
“With around 2,800 vacant nursing posts in the system, record levels of expenditure on agency staff to try to plug the gaps, and nurses’ pay continuing to fall further and further behind the rest of the UK, nurses have had enough.
“The RCN has been raising these issues for many years, but nobody in the corridors of power has listened,” she said.
‘Stood down’
In a statement, the Health and Social Care (HSC) organisations said that “regrettably, as a result of the widespread nature of the strike, numerous appointments and treatments have been cancelled and many services across our hospitals and the community care sector have had to be stood down or reduced”.
Minor Injury Units at Mid Ulster, Bangor, Ards and the South Tyrone Hospital will be closed on December 18th.
All emergency departments will remain open, though “significant pressures” are expected, and the HSC Trusts have asked anyone who does not need emergency care to “please choose alternative services” such as pharmacists and GPs.
“Northern Ireland Ambulance Service will be prioritising 999 calls and those calls which are less serious in nature, potentially, face a delay in response times,” the Trusts said.
Anyone affected by the cancellation of appointments has been notified by their local HSC Trust and appointments will be rescheduled as soon as possible.
Full details of disruption and cancellations are available from the HSC Board and individual HSC Trust websites.
