A LEAKED letter has revealed a spike in young children with suspected coronavirus attending a specialist 'Covid Centre' for assessment, one of whom was admitted to intensive care.
Concerns about the sharp rise in patients referred by their GP -"in stark contrast to summer 2020" - to the Beech Hall facility in Belfast are raised, with the "vast majority" aged under five.
A leading medic managing the centre also warns that patients presenting are "not consistently availing" of Covid testing or self-isolating at home - despite having symptoms.
It is understood that some parents do not want to get their children tested due to the invasive nature of swabbing.
GP-led Covid Centres were set up across Northern Ireland at the the beginning of the pandemic as part of emergency surge planning.
No testing is provided at the facilities, which instead assess patients with Covid symptoms and refer them to hospital or send them home to self-isolate. They are not walk-in centres and you are only seen following a referral.
A dramatic drop in attendances as infection rates fell and vaccines were rolled out has sparked calls to 'stand down' Covid Centres to allow GPs to return to understaffed practices.
In the July 1 letter seen by The Irish News, the lead doctor for Beech Hall outlines "imminent changes" to how the service is run, including restricted operational hours, end of home visits and strict criteria for accepting patients.
"Beech Hall Primary Care Covid Centre is currently experiencing very high volumes of referrals in stark contrast to Summer 2020. The vast majority of referrals are aged under 5," Dr Ursula Brennan writes.
"Additionally, it is noted that patients are not consistently availing of Covid-19 PCR testing or household isolation."
Dr Brennan said changes to hours will begin on Monday, July 5, with centre assessments only carried out between 9am and 6pm Monday to Sunday. (The service originally operated from 8am to 10pm on seven-day basis).
She added that out-of-hours 'Beldoc' referrals - a service currently hit by weekend suspensions due to GP shortages - will only be accepted between 9am and 5pm at weekends and bank holidays.
"If appointments are NOT available - Beech Hall staff will contact the referrer to request retriage of the patient," she added.
One doctor who has covered shifts at the Belfast facility for over a year said up to 80 per cent of patients he has assessed recently are under five years of age.
"A lot parents are reluctant to get their child tested for Covid because they think it is traumatic or hurts. We still have parents who really want to get their child seen on the day because they're worried about them," west Belfast GP Michael McKenna.
"The vast majority of children that we see are actually very well and probably don't need anything other than standard simple fluids...but how do you fit that in with the one child who is going to be sick.
"The public have become Covid fatigued...it is unsurprising we're seeing more kids because we're coming out of lockdown. We're getting the stuff (such as viral illnesses) we normally see in January and February.
"There was one sick child with Covid who ended up in ICU in the past few weeks.
"But the bottom line is that we don't have enough GPs to spread across different services. At the the start of lockdown, it was much quieter but now we're back to business as usual and the numbers are higher than they were prior to Covid."
Dr McKenna, who supported the rollout of Covid Centres last year, said that at this point in the pandemic there needs to be a different way of assessing suspected coronavirus patients to free up overstretched practices.
"We need to find a way to slowly dis-engage from the Covid setting and manage to see children safely in a surgery setting - whether that be an updating of the PPE rules or seeing the child in the morning so you can leave the room to get cleaned...it's how surgeries adapt to that."
