to think that anybody who bowls up at A&E to have drink-induced damage to themselves repaired...

[duchesse]

...should be charged a token but significant £100 by the hospital? Might make em a bit wary of pissing away £50+ on drink then taking on the first person that eyes em up wrong? AIBU?

absolutely, i dont think i made my point very clearly was having a bit of a memory lane moment, i was haemorrhaging and was put in a side room at that time two people were brought in with drug over doses and one man with an alcohol related injury i think he was stabbed. so i was quite rightly bumped down the list but then i bottomed out and nearly died, i pressed my button thing a nurse came running in called for a doctor and i was whisked of and stabilised. after it was all sorted i remember feeling some resentment towards those people because i had nearly died i dont think it was a particularly rational thing.

Paperview - my suspicion is that cannydoit wasn't triaged. Strangely I just posted on here earlier about the time I sat in A&E having an asthma attack for over an hour before I was triaged. Sadly they seem to assume that if you made it into A&E without the aid of an ambulance then you're probably not that bad and can wait to be triaged like everyone else. You'd think the receptionist would have used her common sense and decided that since I could barely tell her my name and DOB that maybe I should be seen sharpish.

If you are so drunk that you are comatose, then

1. the last thing on your mind will be the £100 fee
2. someone else would have to call the medical services so it wouldn't be your choice in the first place whether to or not.

My thought was that maybe somewhere between the 5th and 6th drink people might pause to consider how they were going to get home safely. There is a big difference between a couple of pints and 3x the legal driving limit.

And yes of course my scheme would be unworkable for all the reasons listed above and more (ie burden of proof of responsibility etc) but it pisses me right off that in this country (in particular) there are so many people who can go out drinking heavily regularly without thinking about the consequences at all.

I guess they must either not care what happens to them in any way, either cyrrhosis or injury (which is sad already) or they never have a bad experience whilst bladdered or they have and fail to learn from it.

I would interested to know whether those people who go to A&E because of a drink related incident are one-offs or whether many of them go repeatedly, and if so whether the repeat visitors are medically alcoholics (and therefore can't help themselves to a certain extent) or whether they just have very little regard for their own health and that of others.

I do think there ought to be a charge of some description.

If a drunk chucks up in the back of an ambulance it puts the ambulance off the road for quite sometime whilst it's cleaned and sanitised. That puts other people at risk. If you call an ambulance after a RTC you're charged aren't you? It used to be the case that you were sent a bill - which most people send to the insurance company to pay. I don't see that this is any different.

Op I feel your pain and in some way agree with you, but also agree with the posters who say it's unworkable and unfair. It seems to be against everything the NHS stands for. If you pay tax for something (and drinkers pay tax even if they're not earning, through the vat on booze) then I think you should be able to use it.

That said I'd be dangerous if I was a triage nurse, because I get so angry with idiots who get so drunk they end up hurting themselves and someone else. I did a fair bit of drinking in my student days and 20s but I was never so idiotic to get in to a fight or do damage beyond the odd grazed knee.

So, OP, when I was the victim of a totally unprovoked attack by 4 (non drunk) men whilst walking down a well lit street with my (non drunk) boyfriend, knocked unconscious and left lying facedown in the street bleeding I should've been charged £100 for that, since I was, in fact, drunk? Cheers.

I think people were a bit mean to Canny there! Sounds like an awful experience and I hope you're okay now.

OP - interesting idea but totally unworkable, which is presumably why we're charged so much for parking at hospitals... a much easier way to make money without having to charge drunks!

Er nurse i think you are just being argumentative, your injury wasnt caused by your heavy drinking was it? Thats what we're talking about.

Nurse - No because you were there because of the assault not because you were drunk.

The OP means people who are so legless they are propped up against a wall unable to speak, unable to get themselves home - or even know where they live, probably as good as unconscious.

It would be so difficult to quantify whose fault an accident was and whether it was because somebody was drunk. For example, did somebody stumble because they were drunk, or because somebody barged into them? And what about teenagers? If somebody passes out at a party, or has an accident, do you seriously think it's a good idea for their friends to start a debate about whether to call an ambulance or not because he's only on a student loan and he'll be charged £100?

I was in A&E last weekend and I felt so stupid with my self inflicted injury that I asked them if they had a donations box or something to help pay for my wasting their time treatment but they said no.

I would have donated. I got the end of a cotton bud stuck in my ear and couldn't get it out, so spent two hours in A&E waiting for a nurse with tweezers to fish it out for me. I was totally ashamed for being such a plank, surrounded as I was buy people covered in blood and bandages, and I did try to go to the doctors surgery instead but when I rang the receptionist very kindly pointed out that "people with items stuck in their orifices have to go to A&E." I bet she only said that to make a room full of waiting people laugh.

The point of this story (other than really don't stick a cotton bud in your ear) is that a very drunk man with nothing visibly wrong with him was also waiting to be seen and kept making pleading demands to the A&E receptionist to give him his lager back because security took it and he wasn't even drinking it at the time. The security guards seemed to know him so I think he made a habit of turning up when he was drunk without there being much or anything really wrong. But of course, they can't take that chance and I could be being unfair.

So I can see your point a bit OP. But I don't think they would be able to do it, what if the person was drunk but had been attacked and so not really at fault? And if they take that into account, how many drunken falls will be passed off as attacks etc to get out of paying the fine?

I can see the OP, but where does it end?

If someone is REPEATLY getting drunk or self harming then they need pycharitic help.

I cannot see a single redeeming feature of excess alcohol.

Really Duchesse? We obviously don't mix in the same social circles.

Exactly Daugheroflilith, I bet there are a helluva lot of teenagers who don't call an ambulance as it is because they're worried they'll get into trouble or something. If there was the threat of a fine as well they would most likely never call for help and people would die.

Takethisonehere Firstly, I would've thought that the GP or practice nurse could've helped, don't see why you were sent to A&E. Secondly, unfortunately that man may well have been homeless and had nowhere else warm and dry to go (obviously I'm just speculating). Is it fair that A&E nurses and other patients have to put up with him being drunk and a nusciance? No. But does he deserve some compassion? Yes, quite possibly.

OP, not everyone who has drink-induced damage got it by "taking on the first person that eyes em up wrong".

Exactly reallytired, even if they wouldn't be classed as alcoholic, I would rather be looking at why someone feels the need to constantly have those 'drinks too many'.

I wonder if the OP's actually meaning the (mostly) youngsters who get reeling drunk every weekend and get up to all sorts, seemingly for no reason.

That 'culture' of weekend drinking could possibly be in a different category than someone getting shitfaced because of a break up of a relationship and they're lonely/depressed.

But who's going to separate them out? A medically trained person? (waste of their training) Insurace companies? Police?

And more to the point how are you going to tell what the pissed up one is saying? Or should they be detained until sober, costing more cash?

I see your point OP, I wouldn't extend the fine to genuine health problems that come from being an alcholic but I think ending up in jail/A&E due to being an arse should have reprucussions. Maybe do 2 strikes you get free but from third strike on you pay a fine?

I cost the NHS thousands due to a drink related injury but I challenge anyone on this thread to say it couldn't have happened to them.

Finished a high-pressured project, boss took us out for champagne, I drank a few glasses, not sure how many as waitress kept topping up, they went quickly to my head as I hadn't eaten and had been under a lot of pressure, made my excises so as not to get drunker, walked home in my kitten heels, felt a bit wobbly, should probably have taken them off to valance but was too shy to do so, went over on ankle, spiral fracture, ambulance, A&E, surgery, 7 night hospital stay, months oh physio.

Should I have been charged a fine? If not why not? It was drink that caused me to stumble? If not me then where do you draw the line?

Alcohol is taxed, so most drinkers have already paid for their A&E treatment.

it pisses me right off that in this country (in particular) there are so many people who can go out drinking heavily regularly without thinking about the consequences at all.

Ok, not being flip now. What do you do with people who have alcohol-related problems who don't go out and get pissed in vertical drinking establishments so beloved of tabloid horror stories?

They drink at home or in restaurants or at dinner parties and get cumulative damage to their livers and other organs. Often they are very respectable and well-off. And there are a lot of them/us - and you, unless you don't drink alcohol, which maybe you don't.

How are you going to turn them/us/you away? Do you think any government is going to penalise middle class drinkers doing respectable things other than imposing duty on alcohol? They vote and there are a lot of them/us.

And you are deluded if you think that excess alcohol is a particular problem for this country. Have you never been to Italy or France and seen older men nursing a glass of Fernet Branca or whatever at 10am?

Do you realise that France has very high rates of cirrhosis deaths?

Never been to Spain and seen people weave off back to the office after a 3 hour lunch or been mocked by waiters who don't understand why you don't want to drink and drive?

Never seen a roadside memorial in any of those countries? We imported that tradition from them.

I challenge you to find one person who's never been an arse at least once in their life SockShitter ()

so, OP, when I was the victim of a totally unprovoked attack by 4 (non drunk) men whilst walking down a well lit street with my (non drunk) boyfriend, knocked unconscious and left lying facedown in the street bleeding I should've been charged £100 for that, since I was, in fact, drunk? Cheers.

I love mumsnet. I love that people can read one thing and turn it round completly for the right to throw a lovely bun

When I was a student, I like lots of my friends had the odd night where we would 'drink to excess'. One night I slipped over in a pool of beer at a gig, and cut my hand open with a broken glass, that was on the floor.I don't know if I would have slipped if I had been sober, but I was very drunk. I remember a friend wrapping a sanitary towel round my hand and passing out. My friend got a taxi for me and her to a+e,and I ended up with stitches in my hand.

Two things occurred to me when I read your post.

1 - if there had been the sort of system in place that would have fined me £100, my friend wouldn't have taken me to a+e because we were very skint.

2 - everybody fucks up sometimes, it can be a big fuck up or a minor one, but accidents and fuck ups happen, thank god we have a system that looks after us when these fuck ups happen.

Artichokes, there for the grace of God go I, many, many times.

I must have a very vigilant guardian angel.

AgentZigzag

I give you exhibit A, sockshitter.

One small point: there are huge levies on drink and therefore drinkers put huge amounts of money into the NHS. As do smokers.

Good post hazeyjane - a true alcoholic in a terrible state both emotionally and financially will die at home because they can't afford the fine?

I understand the point and yes, drunks do take up huge amount of time and trauma in hospitals. But it needs to be dealt with at the source - more education and less cheap booze. Enforcement of age laws.

Hands up here who has never been drunk?