Should there be Drink Tanks in our A&E Depts??

[Louth Exile]

One-quarter of all A&E cases are alcohol-related
Monday April 21 2008

More than one-quarter of all injuries dealt with in Irish accident and emergency departments last year were alcohol-related.

The figure is disclosed in a new study by the HSE into the effects of alcohol consumption.

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/onequarter-of-all-ae-cases-are-alcoholrelated-1354232.html


Having sat in an A&E with a loved one for over 13 hours and leaving because no treatment was forthcoming (for non drink related incident), while drunks were carted in and back out again within a couple of hours, this is an issue that is close to my heart. Enda Kenny previously put forward the idea of a drink tank, where the intoxicated that come into A&E are kindly shoved into a room and dealt with when the ordinary decent citzens have been looked after first. He didn't get enough support from his own party, never mind the rest of the country for it to be any kind of a runner, but when you see figures like that, then why not?? Would it not cure alot the problems with out A&E depts in one go??

[pintsofguinness]

Jack Dee had a great idea, the waiting time in A&E should be determined by how stupid your actions, that led to the injury, were.

[doire na raithe]

A&E, Doctors and the NHS as a whole are all there to treat patients equally. You treat your patient as you find them and it is not up to any Doctor or health authority to judge a patient on how they ended up ill/injured.

How would this sort of system work? What about someone who is blind drunk but through no fault of their own ends up badly injured in the early hours of the morning? Are they just left in pain with their injuries and punished because they decided to go out and get drunk that night?

If you were to take this thinking to its eventual conclusion then where would you stop, should every A&E patient be left with a waiting time which is judged on how they injured themselves?

This is not a solution to the problem, it has to be tackled by promoting a safer drinking environment and trying to ensure the safety of people out socialising and prevent these injuries from occuring in the first place.

Edit: Just realised in my own Northern ignorance I've forgotten that many posters don't deal with the NHS.

[Lar Naparka]

How would this sort of system work? What about someone who is blind drunk but through no fault of their own ends up badly injured in the early hours of the morning? Are they just left in pain with their injuries and punished because they decided to go out and get drunk that night?

That's true enough, as far as it goes.
But what about some fcuker who is stoned out of his or her brainand arrives at an A&E in a very boisterous and aggressive state?
Even worse, what if he/she is accompanied by a group of pals who are also pissed out of their tiny minds and who cause mayhem?
I have no trouble with injuries of any sort being treated on a priority basis but I sure do object to unruly and aggressive thugs invading A&Es in a group and tangling with security staff and medical personnel and putting other patients' safety at risk.
I am not familiar with Enda Kenny's proposals about Drink Tanks but I imagine this is what he had in mind.
If in fact it was, then good luck to him.

[Gnevin]

One-quarter of all A&E cases are alcohol-related
Monday April 21 2008

More than one-quarter of all injuries dealt with in Irish accident and emergency departments last year were alcohol-related.

The figure is disclosed in a new study by the HSE into the effects of alcohol consumption.

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/onequarter-of-all-ae-cases-are-alcoholrelated-1354232.html


Having sat in an A&E with a loved one for over 13 hours and leaving because no treatment was forthcoming (for non drink related incident), while drunks were carted in and back out again within a couple of hours, this is an issue that is close to my heart. Enda Kenny previously put forward the idea of a drink tank, where the intoxicated that come into A&E are kindly shoved into a room and dealt with when the ordinary decent citzens have been looked after first. He didn't get enough support from his own party, never mind the rest of the country for it to be any kind of a runner, but when you see figures like that, then why not?? Would it not cure alot the problems with out A&E depts in one go??

The trouble is that a lot of the symptoms of drunkenness happen to correspond the symptoms of other major illnesses such as heart ,brain and other issues. This combined with inability of drunk people to explain what's wrong with them correctly or coherently  means that health staff have to be  extra careful in these cases. Throwing people into drunk tanks could lead to a lot of mistakes

[Bogball XV]

Ah feck, I thought that a drink tank was somewhere you could go to get a few pints while waiting in A&E, you know like a keg, only bigger.  Ah well......

[Lar Naparka]

The trouble is that a lot of the symptoms of drunkenness happen to correspond the symptoms of other major illnesses such as heart ,brain and other issues.

Very true.
It happened to myself.
I suffered a brain aneurysm just over two years ago and was extremely lucky to have survived. I was fortunate that it happened when I had two friends with me. An ambulance arrived and the pair of them accompanied me to the A&E dept. at Beaumont Hospital; this was around 11pm on a Sunday night and I had no drink whatsoever taken.
I was still fairly coherent when admitted but I was steadily sinking into delirium.
I remember being examined by the triage nurse on duty and was told I'd be seen to in about 15 minutes.
I spent over 8 hours in an armchair with only a hospital blanket for warmth. (It was mid-March in 2006 and the weather was very cold.) My pals were joined by some relations at this stage and all they could do was keep talking to me and trying to keep me awake. They were told to do this as I might not ever wake out of it if I fell asleep.
It seems most of the delay in seeing to me was not caused by the admission of more immediate problems, and there were plenty of those. But there were 3 or 4 cases of injured people arriving in an aggressive state and being accompanied by pals who were just as drunk and just as aggressive.
There was absolute pandemonium when a gang of 6 or 7 barged in to finish a fight with someone who had been taken in. My friends were genuinely concerned that if they hadn't been around to wheel me out of the danger area I'd have been trampled on.
I was further told that not a single garda was seen throughout the night and presumably all those who caused havoc and posed risks to other users of the A&E got away scot free.
Now, I was just one individual on one night in a particular hospital and I was a lucky one at that.
How many others were not so lucky? I know one case where a man died while waiting on a plastic chair in the Mater one weekend night while waiting for attention. Again, the delay in attending to him could be put down to the behaviour of drunks who were there and not to the nature of their injuries.

[Gnevin]

Maybe a better suggestion would be better security and limiting the number of visitors under the influence admitted . So if I turn up hammered after falling over only 1 friend would be allowed a company me into the hospital if they where not sober. What you think? ?

[Lar Naparka]

So if I turn up hammered after falling over only 1 friend would be allowed a company me into the hospital if they where not sober. What you think? ?

I'd see nothing wrong with that, if you and the one friend were in a civilised state of mind!
I've no problem with people being drunk but when they pose a real danger to themselves or to others; some form of restraint must be used.
What I wrote about above were incidents in the actual treatment room and not the general waiting area. One night after my treatment I was lying in bed in the High Dependency Unit when a group tried to force its way in to see someone who was admitted there. The security managed to stall them but the altercation went on outside in the corridor for ages.
Those of us who were conscious were absolutely terrified as we all had monitors and tubes hanging out of us. How security was so lax as to allow them that far is a mystery to me.
Nurses and other medical staff tell me that my experiences are not unusual or uncommon. I was told that the scene in the general waiting area on any weekend night has to be seen to be believed. I'd say the same holds true for other hospitals also.
People who find themselves in an A&E at any time are usually either injured or traumatised to begin with and can do without any loutish carry-on All around them.