NEW YEAR HANGOVER
Alcohol-affected patients jam city emergency department
CAIRNS Hospital suffered a nightmare New Year Eve’s hangover by recording its busiest day in history in the emergency department on January 1.
Figures obtained exclusively by the Weekend Post show 253 people sought treatment at the ED, an increase of 23 on the two previous record days of May 3 and 7.
In comparison, there were 224 patients at the ED on January 1 last year.
ED acting nurse unit manager Tanya Ellis said “the high number was attributed to increased alcohol-related trauma”.
Ms Ellis, who worked a day shift last Sunday, said things were made worse by a large number of people presenting with other conditions.
“I think it’s just a pure coincidence that all these sick patients attended on New Year’s Day as well,” she said.
Alcohol intoxication is the eighth-most common complaint in the ED. Ms Ellis said staff worked hard to meet the increase in demand.
“We anticipated that it would be quite busy, so we put on a couple of extra staff and that, thankfully, was a good idea,” she said.
January 1 capped a record year overall for the ED, with 68,566 people seeking help in 2016, a rise of six per cent from 2015.
This trend is increasing yearly, with 31,255 people treated in the busy ward in 2004.
Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service chief operating officer Tina Chinery said the demand on the emergency department was likely to increase again this year.
“We are very proud of our emergency department and Hospital and Health Service staff who continue to provide timely, top quality healthcare to the Far Northern community, despite record levels of demand,” she said.
In October, the health service urged people to think before asking for help at the busy emergency department, detailing several bizarre reasons hundreds of patients sought treatment.
This ranged from one person deeming it necessary to have a loose tooth removed by emergency medical staff through to others who had foreign objects inserted up their bottoms.
Ms Chinery said Far North Queenslanders needed to understand when it was appropriate to visit their general practitioner, as opposed to the ED.
“Our community has a very good understanding of when it is appropriate to come in,” she said.
“Our emergency department is always here for people who need it.”