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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think if you have to call an ambulance because you have injured yourself drunk then ....

118 replies

stoppinchingthedummy · 25/04/2011 20:28

you should have to pay for it??

I may be being unreasonable but after an incident i witnessed this weekend it suddenly dawned on me that some people get so blind drunk ,fall over ,bang their head or whatever they may do and then an ambulance is called and they are taken to a&e all at the tax payers expense and more to the point taking paramedics away from someone who might be desperatly ill needing it?

OP posts:
SardineQueen · 25/04/2011 21:01

op whoops I wasn't being sarcastic! Sorry I came across like that! I have genuinely never seen an AIBU before where an OP sees and accepts that they are being U with such good grace before! It was supposed to be a cheerful joke... Sorry!

masterblaster · 25/04/2011 21:02

As a smoker tiffany, can I just point out that we do pay for NHS resources. We pay a stack of cash, and are less likely to burden the state in old age. You should be thanking us, rather than complaining.

onepieceofcremeegg · 25/04/2011 21:03

OP yes you are accepting all this with good grace.
Sorry if I have been a bit sharp/sarcastic. As previously noted I have been up all night hence my unusually harsh posting style.

StuckinTheMiddlewithYou · 25/04/2011 21:05

Unfortunately it's not always possible to immediately tell if a person is just blind drunk or has had a stroke or other brain injury/disease.

Imagine the tragedy of a stroke victim being turned away as they'd had a single pint just prior to the stroke and the triage nurse could smell it on their breath?

I think we just need to accept that human beings are falliable and sometimes make terrible mistakes. All we can do is encourage people to make good decisions in their lives, educate people well and then pick up the pieces when it occasionally goes wrong.

There really is no other choice, logically, morally or practically.

Original poster
stoppinchingthedummy · 25/04/2011 21:05

Sardine and onepeice - apologies accepted ...its hard to say i was bu ;)

OP posts:
StuckinTheMiddlewithYou · 25/04/2011 21:07

double take

Congrats to the OP! Wine

bumpsoon · 25/04/2011 21:35

I once went to hospital following a car accident , made my boss get another car and drive me 15 miles to the one nearest home as was heavily pregnant and didnt want to give birth in the city hospital , anyhoo i digress ,well i walked into A&E and they tried to charge me £25 for an ambulance !

microserf · 25/04/2011 22:01

sorry, yabu. because once you start to identify non deserving cases, you've crossed a line. i agree it's damnably annoying though. i agree it should be less socially acceptable to go binge drinking and get into that sort of state though.

microserf · 25/04/2011 22:02

PS just read the last posts - also congrats to the OP!

ednurse · 25/04/2011 22:07

I don't think that would work. What WOULD be nice however is to charge those who use the ambo's as simply a means to get closer to home.

There would be one or two patients per weekend where I worked (busy a+e just outside london) who would phone an ambulance if they lived in the area but had been out elsewhere - think a £15 taxi away. They would get dropped of, sit in the waiting area, or worse...in a cubicle if their feigned illness was 'bad' then 5 minutes later...gone. Yup, that's them and their mates who also bagged a ride now a 5 minute walk from home.

Would be handy if we could charge THEM.

fluffles · 25/04/2011 22:09

you can't even open the door to playing the blame game imo.

i have never had an accident drunk and don't drink much anyway.

i do some dangerous sports - skiing, martial arts, mountain biking...

but i have hurt myself falling off a kerb jogging... needed xray, consultant, physio... is that a dangerous sport? my fault for jogging? or was i doing a good thing jogging so reducing my likelihood of obesity? it's just too hard to judge...

FabbyChic · 25/04/2011 22:11

Smokers who use NHS resources have already paid more than enough in tax on the cigarettes to warrant treatment. For every packet of fags someone buys the government get over £4.00. Thats a fortune, by the tiime a smoker needs treatment they have paid for it two fold.

linziluv · 25/04/2011 22:16

My nanna was charged for the ambulance that removed my grandad's body after a drunk driver smashed into him.
My auntie knocked an elderly man over (not serious) and stopped to call ambulance, picked up his wife to take to hospital and stayed till they needed taking home...she was also billed for the ambulance!
So no, I don't think yabu

xstitch · 25/04/2011 22:36

'I think A&E shouldn't accept anybody drunk.'#

Its not as simple as that Mcos. Some conditions cause the person to appear drunk when in fact they are not. The only way to have any chance of differentiating is to examine the person. That could not happen if they are turned away at the door. Here are some examples of conditions that could have this problem:

A stroke
Diabetes, if the person is hypoglycaemic
Head injury
advanced Huntingdons disease can make the person appear drunk
Brain tumour
brain haemoraghe

Do these people not deserve to be helped?

Shock linzi surely the drunk driver should have been billed.

GKlimt · 25/04/2011 23:52

Binge drinking costs the NHS £2.9 billion a year - I think people should be charged ?£50 for visits to A&E after binge drinking - it would send a clear message about this form of alcohol abuse.

HalfPastWine · 25/04/2011 23:55

YANBU

HowsTheSerenity · 26/04/2011 00:32

In the olden days the drunks were taken home to sleep it off, or taken to the lock up to sleep it off. Now today where everyone wants to sue everyone else for breathing the wrong way the police and paramedics are covering thier arses by taking drunks to hospital. If someone vomits, aspirates and dies becuase the coppers did not take them to hospital then that officer is in big trouble. There is no responsibility on the drunk person. They should have stopped drinking before they got so drunk they were unable to function. Drunk (drunk only not injured) people take up hospital beds and increase waiting times. People should take responsibility for themselves.

Just to save an argument, if the person in question has been diagnosed as just shitfaced and not suffering any form of disease or condition or diasbility then they should be charged, kicked out of hospital and made to pay for treatment!!!

linziluv · 26/04/2011 06:05

xstitch you'd thinks so wouldn't u?!
Not sure of ins and outs as was before I was born but my mum told me...not sure if things were different in 1971!

BionicEmu · 26/04/2011 10:27

Just wanted to add my 2 cents...
YANBU to be v annoyed by the situation, but YABU with your solution.
I went into A&E with my mother a couple of years ago, she'd fractured a vertebra (fallen off a chair while cleaning a lightbulb FFS), unfortunately it was a Friday night. Saw two doctors trying to wake up a v drunken man who had a cut on his arm that needed stitching, they were at him for a good 20 minutes trying to get him to come round enough but he kept swearing and pushing them away. All the while my poor mother was in agony, they hadn't even seen her and she was still up and walking. Surely a possibility then is to just to sort of say "it's not life-threatening, he's obviously drunk so is effectively refusing treatment...bye!" Same goes for paramedics who try to force drunk people into ambulances.

Incidentally, for some reason I thought it was a licensing offence to serve alcohol to people who appear drunk??

Al0uiseG · 26/04/2011 10:31

I actually think that we are a nation of drunks precisely because we have a NHS, a hell of a lot of people don't exercise much personal responsibility because they know that someone else will pick up the pieces.

MrsFruitcake · 26/04/2011 10:34

I fell over in a club a few years back and cut my leg on broken glass. I needed 18 stitches and although I'd certainly had a few drinks, I wasn't totally drunk. I slipped on a spillage on the dancefloor and the glass had been broken there - I was just unlucky and it could have been worse.

However, the club wouldn't call an ambulance for me and instead rang my DH at 2am, who was at home with our 1-year old baby. He had to take her to my parent's house and then take me to A&E.

I think I needed an ambulance. The whole thing was terrible but in the end the club agreed to stop using glass and changed to plastic instead so something good did come of it.

SardineQueen · 26/04/2011 10:36

Everyone was pissed all the time in Britain long before the NHS was invented.

RunnerHasbeen · 26/04/2011 10:38

I think a better approach would be to charge the pubs/clubs in the general area through some sort of council tax/ rent - not too different from "insurance against local costs of excessive drunkeness." They would be encouraged not to serve those who were wasted and order taxis to get them home (off their patch). These businesses are making a killing on getting people really drunk without any responsibility.

Chil1234 · 26/04/2011 10:41

Your solution is 'U' but YANBU to question the cost that our heavy drinking culture causes to the health service and police. I don't have any numbers or clever links to statistics, but it the cost is significant. In some areas the problem is being tackled by getting hold of those that have made themselves seriously ill or charged with criminal acts through being drunk and getting them to talk through their behaviour with trained counsellors. Apparently, if you get someone to think about the consequences of their actions whilst it's still fresh, it can help how they behave in future..

purepurple · 26/04/2011 10:51

So we don't treat drunk people
addicts
fat people
mentally ill people
diyers
sports people
suicidal people
bad car drivers
or anybody else that caused their own injury/illness?
Well, I suppose that would cut down the NHS bill. But the paramedics would all be out of jobs. They could all retrain as undertakers, be lots of jobs going there.