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Medic tent returns for Christmas revellers
Sophie Goodchild, Health Editor04.12.08
A field hospital was set up today to treat intoxicated City workers as the Christmas party season gets underway.
A team of medics from London Ambulance Service will be on call until 4am at the stretcher tent inside Liverpool Street Station throughout December.
This is to relieve the increasing burden on overstretched ambulance crews and on A&E staff from binge drinkers.
A "booze bus" will also patrol central London on the same nights of the week picking up people who are drunk and taking them to hospital in groups.
The opening of the booze tent comes as figures reveal alcohol-related 999 calls have soared.
Findings from the LAS show staff dealt with 61,624 alcohol-related cases over the past year - an 11 per cent rise.
The majority of the cases were patients injured in drink-related violence.
The biggest increase was in Redbridge, with a rise by nearly a quarter to 1,368 cases. Westminster still tops the league for the most alcohol-related calls overall to the ambulance service - 4,744 incidents occured in the borough between April 2007 and March this year.
More than 100 patients were treated at the Liverpool Street field hospital last year, a figure which is not expected to fall this December.
The tent will operate from 8pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
Nick Lesslar, LAS duty station officer for City and Hackney, said relatives of anyone treated at the tent can expect a phonecall from the paramedics to pick up their drunk partner or teenager.
He said LAS was "forced" to spend thousands providing the booze tent.
He said: 'We've been forced to provide this service so that the core service is not depleted. We will have no trouble calling relatives at 3am from patient's phones to get them to pick them up.
"The credit crunch seems to have had no impact on drinking. You've still got a lot of Champagne Charlies out there with money to spend on drink.
He added: "The way to think about the impact of booze is this: your grandmother has collapsed with chest pains but there's no response vehicle because our crew are dealing with someone who's collapsed drunk in the street. That's the reality."
Reader views (5)
Sue,Orpington, I agree wholeheartedly.Why is the NHS facilitate people to drink themselves into oblivion?Its a scandal.If the NHS is going to do this for people who have no self respect then thay should at least charge them for it,if the breweries can make money out of these fools why cant the NHS?
- Kev, London
How funny, what a sorry state of affairs that this service has to be provided!!! How much is this costing our already struggling NHS.
- Kate Ross, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
The simple answer to this is don't respond to people that are out of their heads on drink at all. If they have to be hospitalised then charge them the full private rate. Maybe if we started doing this, then irresponsible boozeheads would become more responsible for their own welfare and safety. If I had a choice between helping a heart attack victim or someone off their head, I know which one I'd choose. Personally, I couldn't care less if they choke on their own vomit as its all self inflicted.
- Sue, Orpington, Kent
Maybe its about time we made people pay for this service if their condition is self inflicted.
- Bb, S.E London
The reveller hords should fund all costs for this tent themselves anlong with police and cleaning teams. I am sick of subsidising this for them and seeing and hearing their offensive language and foul behaviour, smelling their vomit and being totally incovenienced by having to go out of my way to avoid them when I am in the area. And its the same all over the country. We are all quite mad to not only tolerate this but make it easier for people.
- Helen, norwich
