One in seven patients entering hospital emergency departments on Australia Day were there because of alcohol-related harm, research by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine has found.
The largest snapshot survey of its kind undertaken in Australia and the first to investigate the relationship between alcohol-related harm and Australia Day, it found that as of 11pm on Tuesday, 15% of patients across 100 emergency departments were there because of alcohol.
The chairwoman of the college’s public health committee, Associate Prof Diana Egerton-Warburton, said that figure was closer to 8% on an average weeknight.
On Friday and Saturday nights alcohol-related emergency presentations could reach 14%.
“We’ve been doing this survey for the past three years and this was the highest ever resulted recorded for Australia Day, and higher than an average Friday or Saturday night,” she said.
The figures revealed a “huge and entirely unnecessary burden being placed on our already over-stretched emergency departments”, Egerton-Warburton said.
She urged government action on extended trading hours, low prices and heavy advertising of alcohol, all factors known to contribute to harmful drinking.
“For every additional late trading hour, there’s a 20% increase in serious assaults and injuries,” Egerton-Warburton said. “States like NSW and Queensland are already trying to take a lead on introducing early last drinks to help address this tide of human tragedy that arrives in our emergency departments.
“We need to have a national agreement on safe alcohol trading hours. It will save lives.”
“This is the cost Australia is paying for its all-too-familiar relationship with alcohol, and again supports our argument that governments are not doing enough and that the well-understood evidence about fixing this problem, including getting rid of quick access to booze and reducing trading hours, is the only way to address it.”
