Whether it be the UK, Australia or New Zealand the story is the same. Hospital emergency staff are having to deal with treating increased numbers of drunk people, whose behaviour at times places staff and other patients at risk.
The Adelaide Advertiser claims that: 'A snapshot survey of 106 EDs across Australia and New Zealand done at 2am on Saturday, December 14, found an average of one in seven Australians and one in five New Zealanders were there because of alcohol abuse. In some EDs, the figure it was as high as one in three.' www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/doctors-demand-action-as-drunks-clog-up-our-hospital-...
The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine's Dr Diana Egerton-Warburton said emergency physicians were 'sick and tired of dealing with the bloody idiots who drink alcohol to excess'.
In NZ's Dunedin Hospital it is reported that: 'Late at night at weekends up to 72 per cent of admissions were related to alcohol'. There is concern that the influx of drunks 'drew attention away from other patients with conditions such as heart attacks.' www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/9020963/Drunks-huge-drain-on-A-E
'Their healthcare gets delayed by the presence of all the alcohol-related injuries.'
In the UK more than 2 million A & E visits are alcohol related. Nurses are calling for 'drunk people to be treated outside hospitals'.
Dr Peter Carter, head of the Royal College of Nurses says that 'drunk people should be treated in special 'booze buses' or held in drunk tanks until they are sober enough to attend A&E'. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/poll/2014/jun/17/drunk-people-refused-access-a-e-nurses
Does Dr Carter have a point? Should people with other urgent ailments have to wait while staff deal with unruly and intoxicated people or does everyone have a right to be treated in a timely manner, irrespective of the circumstances leading to their hospital visit?
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It is proposed that drunk people should be treated in special 'booze buses' until they are sober enough to attend A&E