Children drinking to the point of oblivion (From Daily Echo)
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Children drinking to the point of oblivion
9:54am Tuesday 13th May 2008 in News By Maheesha Kottegoda
CHILDREN as young as eight are being brought into hospital in Southampton semi-conscious through drinking alcohol, the Daily Echo can reveal.
Worried consultants spoke out about the growing problem of child drunkenness as new reports put the city's booze culture in the spotlight.
Battling the city's booze problem - click here
John Heyworth, consultant for Southampton General Hospital's accident and emergency department, told the Daily Echo that his staff were seeing more and younger children.
He said: "We are getting eight and nine-year-olds exploring the parents' drinks cabinets and the next thing they know they are flat on their backs and in a fairly bad way. They end up unconscious, semiconscious and a lot of resources are needed to take care of them.
"Usually we have 12 to 15- year-olds experimenting and getting it wrong. It is a fairly unimpressive spectacle seeing them lying here vomiting.
They can barely remember what they have drunk.We are very concerned that they are leaving themselves vulnerable to all sorts of things."
Drinkers to be screened to help combat liver disease - click here
On Saturday the Daily Echo revealed that almost 1,000 people were admitted to Southampton General Hospital last year with alcohol- related liver disease.
Meanwhile seven out of every ten people rushed into casualty at the hospital on Friday and Saturday nights were there because of drink.
Southampton is ranked the third worst city in the country for booze-related violence, beaten only by Kingstonupon- Hull and London.
The trend of young drinkers being admitted into casualty is being mirrored in the numbers of young adults in the city being admitted for liver disease.
The hospital's consultant hepatologist, Mark Wright, told the Daily Echo that the condition - dubbed the "silent killer" and usually only prevalent in middleaged drinkers - was claiming younger and younger victims despite the fact it can take years to develop.
Clubs told to calm down revellers with music
Dr Wright recently treated one Southampton 23-year-old who had been downing enough strong cider every month to fill a bathtub.
He said: "He came in after he had been vomiting blood.
He said he had been drinking six litres of cider every day for the past five years. Instead of having a dark spongy liver his was small and yellow like a piece of gristle. What I am seeing is a big increase in the number of people in their 20s with Nstage liver disease.
Ten years ago this would have been unusual.'' The £240,000 NHSfunded programme, expected to start in the coming months, aims to find out the feasibility of rolling out screening across the country for those most at risk.
About 10,000 people aged between 25 and 50 are to be sent questionnaires on their drinking habits via GPs.
