A meeting of the Isle of Wight Council has been cancelled due to the ongoing pressures of coronavirus.
The policy and scrutiny committee for health and social care was supposed to meet at 17:00 today (Monday 16th March), where items including the future of Shackleton Ward, non-emergency patient transport and ambulance response times were to be consulted on.
The chairman of the committee, Cllr John Nicholson, spoke to health and social care partners due to attend the meeting tonight and decided ‘due to pressures placed upon services’ needing to deal with the virus, the meeting would be cancelled.
This comes as a second case of COVID-19 was diagnosed on the Island over the past weekend and further guidance has been issued to try and delay the spread of the virus.
Schools remain open but advice will now be issued daily from the government to try and give the latest help — which may include the isolation of those over 70 and the banning of mass gatherings, following in Scotland’s footsteps, of more than 500 people.
Latest NHS advice is for those experiencing a high temperature and continuous cough to self-isolate for seven days with no need to phone 111 due to the overwhelming number of calls the service has faced recently.
It asks you do phone 111 if you feel you cannot cope with symptoms at home, your condition gets worse or the symptoms do not go away after 7 days.
Councillor John Nicholson, chair of the policy and scrutiny committee for health and social care, said:
“In these unprecedented circumstances, the priority should be to ensure we direct council resources well. With this is mind, I took the decision to cancel tonight’s meeting due to the pressing demands on our health professionals to prepare and respond to the COVID-19 emergency.
“In consultation with health partners it was deemed more important to allow them to focus on the delivery of services and emergency planning than attending a meeting at County Hall.”
Of course they could have changed the agenda to cover the current situation…..
Don’t be silly why would they want to do that? They would be in danger of doing something remotely work like. Lol
Council under pressure ?. Now they know what the rest of are suffering.
Talking of under pressure, I passed a small gate being painted by Island Roads this morning, at the top of Spencer’s Road, Ryfe. One Man painting, his mate sat watching and smoking. Three hours later I came back; one STILL painting, his mate still say watching. With all the pot holes and damage to the roads, is that all they can find to do ??.
I bet they are all on full fat salaries still. Likely just meant they had to provide their ‘own’ lunch.