The health care system could be overwhelmed without some co-operation between the hospital services and the clubbing scene, according to a Cork Accident and Emergency consultant.
"Hedonism and healthcare have to be balanced with a partnership-plan between the clubbing scene and hospital staff if the present care system is not to become endangered," said Dr Chris Luke, consultant in the A&E departments in Cork city hospitals. "There is a case for 'accident' being dropped out of Accident and Emergency Departments. Many brutal assaults are not accidents. They happen because of abuse of drink," Dr Luke said.
"Fallout from weekend revelry can be so numerous you could see a much-needed ambulance taken up with a drunk 19-year-old with a sprained ankle while there is no ambulance available for a very sick man with a heart-attack," he said.
Calling for a holistic approach to A&E, Dr Luke said: "A partnership must be formed between police, care agencies and the commercial entertainment business to reduce avoidable hazards. A 'Score List' of obvious causes of accidents must be made and entertainment entrepreneurs should work together with the care system to help avoid them.
"Care is not a natural right of society. A Neanderthal man clubbed to death would not expect care. Care is the privilege of a civilised society. But caring can be become endangered if it is over-burdened. In one A&E department in Liverpool 10 years ago, during a period of intense pressure from weekend clubbers, 90 per cent of 100 nurses quit their jobs." said Dr Luke.
The A&E consultant has drawn up a nine-point Score List of the most common causes of accidents based on his involvement in the Liverpool initiative with up-dated data from the Irish scene.
"The number one cause of all accidents is drink, which leads to serious injury and death. It is responsible for 90 per cent of violence. Very few incidents of violence are caused by psychiatric disorders.
"Alcohol has led to a new phenomena. In addition to men behaving badly due to alcohol abuse, we now have women behaving badly. Between half to one-third of all assaults are now on women by women. There are women whose heads are split open by being bottled by other women; women whose ear-lobes are bitten off by other women and women who are head-butted by other women," he said.
"Sex and alcohol are bad mixers. While people are planned and prepared at the beginning of the evening, after consumption of alcohol, at three in the morning, they are very different people. They don't care if they never have a condom. And if they do use one, it could be used wrongly. There has been a staggering rise in sexually transmitted diseases, up to 100 per cent in some instances," the doctor said.
"The noise levels at a disco were recently measured by one medical student and the decibels were comparable only to that of a jet taking off from an airport from a distance of 100 yards."