Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Making certain patients pay for emergency services might make night shifts better for doctors, but it is discriminatory.
In my experience, drunken patients in A&E generally fall into one of two categories. The comatose types, usually brought in following a 999 call by a concerned friend or passer-by in the street. Or, the alert and chatty types, with some other problem like a head injury or broken ankle to contend with.
It is these patients that Edwin Poots, Northern Ireland’s health minister is considering charging for A&E attendances. This is not a new idea, and on the face of it appears to have merit. We constantly hear about the financial pressures that the NHS is facing and of the increasing number of attendances to A&E departments. A study has estimated that potentially two million A&E attendances in England and Wales are related to alcohol. Certainly in the hospital that I work in, doing a weekend night shift without encountering such admissions is more myth than legend.
http://www.theguardian.com/healthca...e/2014/nov/10/charging-drunk-patients-a-and-e
In my experience, drunken patients in A&E generally fall into one of two categories. The comatose types, usually brought in following a 999 call by a concerned friend or passer-by in the street. Or, the alert and chatty types, with some other problem like a head injury or broken ankle to contend with.
It is these patients that Edwin Poots, Northern Ireland’s health minister is considering charging for A&E attendances. This is not a new idea, and on the face of it appears to have merit. We constantly hear about the financial pressures that the NHS is facing and of the increasing number of attendances to A&E departments. A study has estimated that potentially two million A&E attendances in England and Wales are related to alcohol. Certainly in the hospital that I work in, doing a weekend night shift without encountering such admissions is more myth than legend.
http://www.theguardian.com/healthca...e/2014/nov/10/charging-drunk-patients-a-and-e