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Staff affected by the removal of services from Whiteabbey and Mid Ulster hospitals have said they are concerned about the safety of patients.Accident and emergency services are to be removed from the two hospitals in a fortnight.
They will be replaced with minor injury units, while many of the more serious cases will go to Antrim Area Hospital.
Workers at the hospitals were briefed on Wednesday and afterwards several expressed grave concerns.
Nicola Clark, a junior doctor who has worked at Antrim and Mid Ulster hospitals, said: "Staff are completely overworked.
"They're very good but they don't have time. You leave the place on a day wondering 'did I get everything done I was supposed to get done?' we're so under pressure.
"We're just concerned that there's going to be something happens to a patient.
"Somebody's going to die, there's going to be a critical incident and the nurses and doctors are going to be blamed and it's not going to be their fault," she said.
Another health worker told the BBC: "We had a doctor at the Mid Ulster meeting this morning who broke down in tears and she said there is no way this is going to work."
Inpatient cardiology services are also being moved from Whiteabbey to Antrim Area Hospital.
Over the next few months, the remaining acute medical beds from Whiteabbey and high dependency beds from Mid Ulster will also be transferred.
Dr Peter Flanagan, a senior medical director at the Northern Trust, said there would be up to 20 additional beds to cope with demand
However, the BBC has learned that in the last three weeks alone there have been on average 20 trolley waits per day.
On Wednesday, the Northern Health Trust's Colm Donaghy said the changes had been planned for some time and were approved by the health minister in September 2009 after a 16-week period of consultation.
"I want to reassure staff that the trust will work to ensure that changes will not lead to any compulsory redundancies for those who work at the two local hospital sites," he said.This article is from the BBC News website. ? British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.