Alcohol injuries equal two a day

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Almost 800 people arrived at Nelson Hospital in the 2015/16 fiscal year with an alcohol-related injury – more than two a day – with hospital staff revealing it could be more.

Nelson Marlborough District Health Board acting chief executive Peter Bramley released the information to Nelson Weekly via an official information act request.

It shows 788 presentations were coded as ‘alcohol a factor in injury = yes’.
But Peter admits that number could be higher, saying that “clinical coding for alcohol-related injury and illness may be of variable consistency due to clinical caution to state conclusively without a blood alcohol testing.”

Andrew Morgan, Emergency Medicine Specialist at Nelson Marlborough Health, says there are still more reasons why the numbers of incidents attributed to alcohol intoxication could be higher.

“For instance, someone may have been intoxicated, fallen and injured themselves, but not come to ED until the following morning,” he says.
“The injury may have been recorded as ‘due to a fall’ rather than alcohol-related.”NMDHB - Top Five Graph

Andrew says that dealing with intoxicated people can be challenging for ED staff.
“It takes longer, they are difficult to communicate with, tend to wander around, may have equally-intoxicated friends interfering and may be aggressive,” he says.

“Most alcohol-related presentations are due to injuries sustained while intoxicated. Only a very small number of people are brought to ED because they are unconscious, or can’t stand or talk. In these cases it is usually best that they are taken to ED.”

Nelson Police were approached for comment on the numbers, but said they were not in a position to speak specifically on the data from the DHB.

The official information act request also revealed the top five most common injuries or illnesses that saw people visit Nelson Hospital’s A&E department in the 2015-16 fiscal year.
They were abdominal pain, chest pain (non cardiac), head injury (minor), viral disease and sprain of ankle.

The single busiest 24 hour period for the department was August 23, 2015, when there were 113 presentations with 36 admissions and, on average, the busiest day of the week were Sundays.