All across the world, hospitals have been inundated with COVID patients, pushing aside other patients or treatments deemed nonessential, and increasing wait times for people that need medical attention for other reasons. To make matters worse, some medical facilities have been forced to close, limiting the options available and further exacerbating wait times. To help people in need of medical attention get a better sense of what hospitals are open and the wait times they will likely encounter upon arrival, officials in Northern Ireland are working to provide near real-time updates of estimated wait times at Accident & Emergency facilities across the region. The dashboard is updated hourly by NIDirect, an official government website tracking and providing access to public sector information and services in the UK. The wait times are displayed in the dashboard below.
