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Emergency physicians are calling for alcohol to be less accessible and more expensive after their annual snapshot again found that alcohol-related cases put pressure on hospital emergency departments.
The newly released snapshot, from the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, puts a figure on the number of people in emergency departments in Australia and New Zealand for alcohol-related reasons at 2am on the Saturday before last Christmas, largely part as a result of Friday night. activities.
In New Zealand, 19 out of 20 eligible EDs provided data. At the time of the snapshot, there were 422 patients in EDs in New Zealand. Of those patients, 66 (16%) were there for reasons related to alcohol, while eight cases (1.9%) were related to methamphetamine.
Chris McKeen / Stuff
A snapshot in the early hours of a Saturday in December found that 16 percent of people in New Zealand’s emergency departments were there for alcohol-related reasons.
“Alcohol has never been cheaper, more promoted or easier to come by, and the harm caused by alcohol is the single biggest preventable public health problem facing EDs,” the report said.
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The harm caused by alcohol and other drugs (ODA) was a significant challenge for the acute health system, particularly due to increasing pressures from patient demand, overcrowding, and limitations in the capacity and resources of services emergency.
Despite reported low levels of methamphetamine, the drug had become a serious problem for emergency responders. Patients in the ED due to methamphetamine had complex needs and required active care, increased clinical resources, and longer ED stays, according to the report.
Methamphetamine has gotten cheaper and more potent in the last decade, which may partly explain the increased damage caused by the drug.
Stephen Forbes / Stuff
At the same time, eight patients were in EDs related to methamphetamine use
“EDs in Australia and New Zealand need relief from the pressures of managing highly complex, mentally ill and behaviorally disturbed people whose drug and alcohol use has reached a crisis,” the report said.
“All governments must commit to coherent and coordinated interventions to reduce alcohol and drug-related harm in the community.”
Among the report’s recommendations, the university called for testing demand-reduction measures that increase the price of alcohol.
He also wanted measures to be tried that would reduce the supply of alcohol. Measures included reducing the density of alcohol outlets, tighter regulation of alcohol promotion, and stricter enforcement of existing regulations.
To reduce the harms caused by drug use, the university said it supported measures such as needle and syringe exchange programs, community prescribing of the opiate antidote naloxone, safe, physician-supervised injection rooms and services to verify the safety of drugs. the drugs.
Chris Hillock / Waikato Times
Emergency physicians want measures to be tried to reduce the supply and demand of alcohol.
Research has shown that drug use does not increase with these programs. Rather, these programs demonstrated a reduction in the transmission of blood-borne diseases, a reduction in dependence and addiction, and a reduction in deaths from overdoses, according to the report.
The snapshot showed some volatility over the past four years in the proportion of patients in New Zealand emergency departments for alcohol-related causes. In 2016 it reached 23 percent and fell to 12 percent in 2017.
Methamphetamine numbers were just included for two years and increased from 0.7%, just three patients, in 2018, to 1.9% last year.
Figures for Australia have shown greater consistency. Across Tasmania, alcohol-related patients have accounted for 13 percent of ER presentations in each of the past four years, while the number of methamphetamine-related cases was 3 percent in 2018, compared with 2.8 percent in 2019.
There is also considerable consistency within the four largest Australian states, although considerable variation between them. Among the four, Victoria had the lowest proportion of alcohol-related cases in 2019 at 8 percent, while Western Australia was the highest at 22 percent. For New South Wales the figure was 13% and for Queensland 12%.
