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Field hospital for drunken City workers
Amy Iggulden, Health Correspondent21 Dec 2007
Scores of professionals are being treated for the after-effects of excessive drinking at a field hospital set up in the centre of the City.
Last night 11 people were treated by ambulance service paramedics at a stretcher tent inside Liverpool Street station as part of Operation Mitre.
The figure is expected to rise tonight as workers celebrate the start of their Christmas break.
The field hospital was set up to keep NHS beds free for more important cases. The hospital opened as a survey found that the over-thirties are worse binge drinkers than teenagers and twenty-somethings.
Last night the Standard was shown behind the scenes as paramedics battled with the consequences of Christmas celebrations.
The green tent on platform 10 is served by three ambulances and a fast response car. A team of 15 including paramedic and emergency technician crews work until 4am, responding to all alcohol-related calls in the area.
The 180 bars and pubs in EC1 and EC2 also have a hotline to the Liverpool Street team to ask for help to haul out injured or incapable drunks.
Six people had already been laid out on stretchers by 9.30pm after "end-of-term" drinks. By 11.30 the casualties had become more extreme.
A trader, believed to be in his late twenties, was bleeding profusely from the back of his head but had no idea what had happened. He was found on the ground by police who called the Operation Mitre team for an ambulance.
One 38-year-old man was rescued after collapsing outside a vodka bar in Clerkenwell and a City trader was rushed in after getting so drunk after work that he fell over outside the Royal Exchange and suffered a serious head wound.
A 61-year-old former doctor, now an alcoholic living in a hostel, tumbled into the road by the Barbican and could not remember where he was or the day of the week.
Another man had to be ferried to A&E at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel because his wife refused to pick him up.
Nick Lessler, deputy manager at the London Ambulance Service field hospital, said: "There is nothing wrong with him yet he is taking up a casualty bed for the night.
"This is about trying to reduce the burden of drink on A&E departments and freeing up ambulances for genuine emergencies.
"It is ridiculous that people are getting themselves into such a terrible state. We are finding men in suits collapsed in doorways or just lying on the pavement. I have less trouble with scaffolders and brickies than I do with people who earn £100,000 a year in the City."
A government survey shows that 44 per cent of 30-50-year-olds admit losing control over their drinking at least one night a year but the figures are likely to be an underestimate as more than half say they have suffered a severe hangover.
London ambulance bosses created the Operation Mitre field unit last year as bingedrinking in the City and Shoreditch began to overload ambulance crews.
Demand on the ambulance service from binge drinking has soared by 12 per cent in the last two years since 24-hour drinking was allowed. Ambulance bosses say the field unit copes with drinkers from across the board and of all ages.
Liverpool Street team leader Tony Olma said: "They are old enough to know better."
Reader views (2)
I have been a Nurse for 22 years and think this is a fabulous idea. Well done London Ambulance!
- Terry, Catford London, 20/12/2008 12:25
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Good thinking NHS! More of these please? And charge drunkards for the use of them too!
- Helen, Norwich, 21/12/2007 13:24
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