Ban of alcohol sales helps health workers
AS WE WERE saying goodbye to the annus horribilis that was 2020 and ushering in this year, a striking phenomenon was observed at several major hospitals across the country during the climax period of the festive season.
The trauma units at several major hospitals – including Durban’s King Edward VIII and Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto, the country’s largest, and the Worcester Regional Hospital in the Western Cape that normally look like war zones around that time of the year – lay empty.
A major difference was the national alcohol ban imposed as part of the government’s arsenal of weapons for fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. Doctors, nurses, cleaners and other health workers were pleasantly surprised to see empty beds in breezy wards during what are normally “horror shifts” around New Year’s Day.
While one can argue that “numbers don’t lie”, especially where twistable statistics requiring interpretation are involved, plain figures obtained from pure head counts give us objective facts that reveal only hard truths. The simple deduction was that the scarcity of alcohol had a direct correlation with the number of trauma cases in hospitals. Stop the alcohol, and the numbers drop.
Therefore, as deleterious as it is to the alcohol and hospitality sectors, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement on Sunday, of the government’s decision to resort to using this weapon once again, makes sense. While this might be a blunt weapon, its efficacy has been proved. But this is not to say there were no other alternatives or anything wrong with the government’s handling of the pandemic in the past few months.
The government has been justifiably criticised for missing out on the chance to deploy the real game-changer weapon of vaccinations in time to prevent or minimise the third wave predicted months ago.
Unfortunately, alcohol sales have many unintended consequences. Instead of targeting problem drinkers and related harmful behaviour, such as drinking and driving, the artillery fires indiscriminately at everyone.
But the president has spoken and there will be no alcohol sales for two weeks.
What you and I can do, in the meantime, is help ensure the two weeks are not extended. This we can do by exercising self-discipline, sacrificing for the greater good of saving lives and hope we can emerge at the end of the harsh lockdown able to rebuild our economy. Subversive and anarchist talk and behaviour, such as by those encouraging revolts against the ban, will not help us get through the wave.
Every citizen has a duty to help ensure the ban is observed to help keep numbers down at our hospitals. Those breaking it or encouraging such behaviour should be reported if we know what’s good for our communities and economy.
We owe it to the long-suffering health workers who have been on the front line of the war against Covid-19 since the beginning of last year. Staying sober will be one small way of thanking them.