| Mr Brodie Paterson, a consultant in the Accident & Emergency Department at Ninewells Hospital, said staff in the department were having to deal with a steadily increasing number of incidents of alcohol-related injuries suffered by men and woman of all ages and from all sections of society.
He appealed for there to be more education about the dangers of excessive drinking.
“There needs to be more education to change the national mindset about what is an appropriate level of drinking,” he told the Evening Telegraph.
“At present that mindset seems to be ‘drink until drunk’.”
Mr Paterson said alcohol was now relatively inexpensive and also increasingly available and the consequences of this were more and more apparent.
“We are seeing young people drinking to the point of drunkenness and they don’t seem to have any personal limits,” he said.
“We then see them being injured, either by falling down or, because they are vulnerable, being assaulted, or worse.”
Mr Paterson said there was also increasing evidence of binge drinkers injuring themselves in similar ways, and it was all contributing to an increasing workload for staff in A&E and elsewhere in the NHS.
“Patients with alcohol-related injuries are a heavy workload,” said Mr Paterson.
“They have to be looked after for their own safety and they can often be unpredictable. Alcohol can often mask more serious injuries than are at first apparent.”
Mr Paterson said the problems caused by heavy drinking were not lessening and he called for more education, particularly of young people, about the dangers of excessive alcohol consumption.
“Education of young people about the dangers is probably where we can make most impact, but this is not a problem affecting just the young.
“It’s taking its toll across all areas of society and age groups, in the workplace and everything.” |
