YORK Hospital is now treating more than 140 Covid patients on seven wards as the hospital risks becoming full over the next fortnight, according to one consultant.

Dr Kim Chadler, a consultant at York Hospital, told the BBC that the hospital could be “full within two weeks” - adding that staff have to do a lot of “juggling, moving and praying” to get through each day.

And a spokesman for York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust told The Press "if admissions continue to increase at the recent rate, the hospital will reach capacity".

Meanwhile, another York Hospital consultant, who did not wish to be named, said the hospital now has 142 Covid patients - and opened its seventh Covid ward on Friday. The hospital has 21 wards in total.

He added that the hospital currently has five Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients - which is expected to rise over the coming days.

He said: “Yesterday we started to move non-Covid patients into the theatre recovery area to help create space. We have also split the hospital into a non-Covid area and hot wards as more areas are taken over.

“And we don’t know when the peak will come. The number of hospitalisations looks set to keep rising.”

A spokesman for the trust added: “The number of Covid-positive patients being admitted to hospital, and the increasing number of cases in our local community, means that our hospitals are coming under growing pressure. We now have more Covid-positive patients in York Hospital than at any previous time in the pandemic and modelling suggests that this will increase further.

“We have taken the next step in our plan which will release additional beds and staff to ensure that we have as many beds available as possible to care for these patients as the infection peaks again.

“We have plans to open additional wards to care for patients with Covid-19, but if admissions continue to increase at the recent rate, we will reach our capacity within the hospital.

“Sadly, this increase of Covid inpatients does mean we have to postpone some planned operations, procedures and appointments." Around 75 per cent of all new cases in York are thought to be from the new British variant.