Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council (LCCC) held a special meeting this week with the chiefs of the two health trusts in its area providing updates on anti-social behaviour on site.
There were 22 reports of drug dealing at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in Belfast between January and August last year, compared to five the previous year.
The emergency department has been particularly affected, with drug dealing and taking on the premises rife, dirty needles in the toilets and baby changing rooms, and staff subjected to abusive and violent behaviour.
Deputy Mayor Ryan Carlin (SF) chaired the meeting and alluded to a previous question raised by DUP councillor Jonathan Craig.
The Lisburn North councillor had previously asked the Trusts: “With regards to the drug dealing, there is CCTV within the facility, so I’ll ask an obvious question, how closely do you work with the likes of the PSNI around that? And how many prosecutions have been made.”
The chamber was told by Belfast Trust at that time, last October, that sniffer dogs were being used by the PSNI to catch drug dealers in Emergency Departments (ED) with the illegal activity also said to be taking place throughout the hospital site “at any time”.
Councillors also heard moves were being made for staff to have body worn cameras to record illegal incidents.
Nineteen arrests were made in the first half of 2024 for drugs activity.
The Trust chiefs present in chamber had been due to respond on a live stream broadcast from Lagan Valley Island, but due to a technical problem the public stream and councillors’ online link was lost for around two minutes.
However, in a recording of...
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